PLANTS THAT KEEP AN ARMY 57 
pinks, to the snowy whiteness of the outside. These 
blossoms, many of them a foot or more in diam- 
eter, raise their graceful heads above the waters 
with truly regal majesty, verily queens of the sea. 
Assuredly the Regia is well named for the great 
ruler of that nation which has been called the 
“Queen of the Seas,” for, with its gigantic leaves 
and its gorgeously blazing blossoms, what can it be 
said to resemble more than a great floating navy? 
And truly the Regia is a navy, for each of its 
ponderous broad leaves forms a great “dread- 
naught,” manned with an active fighting crew, in 
the shape of the numerous water-birds, which find 
in the wide deep-rimmed pads of the lily a safe 
and dry footing. 
It is these birds which form the standing army 
of the queen lily; better, perhaps, call them the 
aerial, standing, and swimming armies, for among 
their numbers are birds of all three kinds. It has 
been said that no less than a dozen tropical birds 
are accustomed to make use of the lily pads as 
their boats. 
The birds catch fish from their vantage-point on 
the leaves; and they feed on the hundreds of aquatic 
insects and snails which swarm about the under sur- 
face of the pads. As many of these insects would 
be harmful to the plant, were they allowed free 
