Guests, Welcome and Unwelcome 199 



which contents the butterflies, and they would have missed 

 the feast if the flowers had grown down below. 



It is by the roadside, on the margin of the forest, in 

 the paths, and along the river-banks that the real beauty 

 of tropical vegetation is to be seen; for here are bushes, 

 shrubs, trees of every height adorned with festoons of 

 creepers, and brilliant with bright flowers and gorgeous 

 butterflies. 



Even here, however, there is nothing to surpass such 

 masses of glorious color as are to be seen on our heathery 

 moors or gorse-covered commons; and though tropical 

 blossoms are undoubtedly splendid, they are not as com- 

 mon as one is apt to fancy, and they generally last but a 

 short time, beginning to fall almost at once. 



Bees abound in this region, but they keep in the sun, 

 among the blossoms borne high up overhead; and the 

 butterflies float lazily along the paths which are checkered 

 with light and shade, but they keep for the most part near 

 the ground. If the smaller trees, therefore, followed the 

 example of the giants of the forest, and bore their blos- 

 soms on their tops, they would be in danger of missing 

 both classes of visitors. The bees would know nothing 

 about them down in the shade, and the butterflies would 

 not rise high enough to find them. 



Under these circumstances, therefore, many trees, such 

 as the custard-apple, bear their blossom on the trunks or 

 larger branches, where moths and butterflies can find them. 

 The cacao is another which does so, and when the large 

 yellow fruit is ripe, the trunks of some of the smaller trees 

 are hardly to be seen, so thickly does it cover them. 



But much as these insects do, both in the tropics and 

 in the mountains, it must not be supposed that their ser- 



