82 ISLES OF STTMMER. 



his grounds near his front gateway, having a spread of about one 

 hundred feet, inside the body of which there is the dead and 

 decayed body of a Pride of India tree. Mr. Burnside is about 

 thirty-five years of age, and wlien a boy, as he said, he "often 

 went all through the Pride of India tree, and there was nothing 

 of the banyan tree to be seen." A banyan seed in some way — 

 perhaps as the result of one of the experiments in raising trees 

 of some bold and intelligent bird — found lodgment where the 

 branches of the old tree diverged from its stem, from ten to 

 fifteen feet from the ground, and, no way dismayed at the dis- 

 couraging prospect, it did not repine at its hard destiny, or 

 arraign the goodness of Providence, but concluded to make a 

 bold and heroic struggle for existence. Its little, minute fibrous 

 rootlets started out upon a seemingly hopeless mission. To the 

 Pride of India, with its graceful branches, beautiful foliage, 

 and large and fragrant clusters of flowers, they were like so 

 many gossamer threads. But the days and months and years 

 rolled on. The rootlets noiselessly and stealthily passed down 

 upon all sides of the trunk that was giving them a support, 

 fastened into the rocks, and the doom of the Pride of India was 

 forever sealed. The law of ''the survival of the fittest" was 

 exemplified. The little rootlets around the trunk enlarged into 

 stems, perfectly encircled the old tree with a living wall of a tree 

 of a most rampant habit of growth, and now, only by a close and 

 critical inspection, can a stranger ascertain that this immense 

 banyan tree perfectly encloses the dea(i»body of a victim, whose 

 life it has, anaconda fashion, crushed out. 



Mr. C. Watcrtoninhis " Wanderings," states that in Demerara, 

 S. A., the wild fig tree in a similar manner often " rears itself from 

 one of the thick branches of the top of the mora," feeds upon 

 the juices of the latter, and in turn is taken possession of by 

 vines, and doomed to contribute a portion of its juices towards 



