THE BANYAN TRES. 85 
much his inferior in climbing trees discovers and captures him. 
Though higher in the scale of life, and rounding out a larger 
and more showy link, man, in ways equally stubborn and stupid, 
often rushes upon and invites his own destruction. Let us there- 
fore, pity these unfortunates, and not laugh at them. 
A specimen of the Ficus Indica, or banyan tree of India, is 
erroneously supposed to exist near Nassau, and strangers often 
leave that city firmly convinced that they have added to their 
new and pleasant experiences a personal acquaintance with that 
famous tree of the Orient. An intelligent native merchant of 
Nassau, who is officially connected with our own Government, 
informed us that the (so-called) banyan tree near Nassau had 
been imported—that it bore no fruit, and that it is the only gen- 
uine India banyan tree upon the island of New Providence. 
He did not intentionally misrepresent, and would generally be 
* considered good authority, but he was mistaken. Confident that 
we had seen little figs growing upon the tree in question, we 
visited it again, examined it more critically, and severed and 
carried away from it branches of wild figs in every stage of de- 
velopment. It is aspecies of the Ficus, has the same habit of 
growth with the Ficus Indica, but is identical in kind with the 
other wild fig trees upon the island of New Providence, and ex- 
hibits far more strikingly than any of the others those peculiar- 
ities which have made the banyan tree of India so famous. 
An intelligent and pleasing correspondent of the Troy Budget 
(the Hon. 0. L. McArthur) writes concerning the Nassau ban- 
yan tree, that ‘after its main limbs have grown out from its 
trunk some twenty or thirty feet, the branches turn down to the 
earth, taking root, and forming a column of support for its pa- 
rent branch, as well as another tree of itself.” ‘It is a very 
curious tree, furnishing friendly shade, ever extending by new 
trunks, ever widening its circle by ts top striking down and 
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