THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. 163 



Perhaps the forest giant is dying the few leaves 

 remaining are yellow and sickly. No flowers 

 have been produced for two or three seasons, and 

 even the branches look shrivelled. There is not 

 the least hope of recovery : it only remains, there- 

 fore, to submit to the inevitable, to die and give 

 place to the strangles 



How pitiful these victims appear! Sometimes 

 in passing along a creek they are to be seen here 

 and there in all stages. Now and again the clusia 

 or fig has been content with the destruction of one 

 branch, and instead of fastening a network of fetters 

 round the trunk, runs down one side. In such cases 

 only half the tree dies, and the remainder looks as 

 if in the loving embrace of a friend. Those which 

 have been more unfortunate are yet standing. 

 Here is one with a dark mass hidden in its canopy 

 of foliage. As yet the murderous work is only 

 beginning, and no serious mischief has been done. 

 Further along, however, is another, which is ob- 

 viously suffering. Its leaves are so few, that the 

 green mass of the strangler dominates and helps to 

 cover its almost naked limbs. Now we come upon 

 another quite dead. Where it is not enclosed in 

 the living fetters, the bark hangs down in great 

 flakes, while branches depend from the festoons of 

 bush-ropes which help to hide the unsightly object 



