A YARD OF JUNGLE ^57 



great bird-filled canella begun its life. In my 

 war-bag were a score of potential forest giants 

 doomed to death in the salt ocean. But for my 

 ejSForts toward the Wh — y, their fate might have 

 been very different. 



Some of the half -decayed leaves were very 

 beautiful. Vistas of pale, bleached fungus lace 

 trailed over the rich mahogany-colored tissues, 

 studded here and there with bits of glistening, 

 transparent quartz. Here I had many hints of 

 a world of life beyond the power of the unaided 

 eye. And here too the grosser fauna scram- 

 bled, hopped, or wriggled. Everywhere were 

 tiny chrysalides and cocoons, many empty. 

 Now and then a plaque of eggs, almost micro- 

 scopic, showed veriest pin-pricks where still 

 more minute parasites had made their escape. 

 When one contracted the field of vision to this 

 world where leaves were fields and fungi loomed 

 as forests, competition, the tragedies, the mys- 

 tery lessened not at all. Minute seeds mimicked 

 small beetles in shape and in exquisite tracery 

 of patterns. Bits of bark simulated insects, a 

 patch of fungus seemed a worm, while the mites 

 themselves were invisible until they moved. 

 Here and there I discovered a lifeless boulder of 



