28 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



milking it their dwelling by night and by day, and many 

 are the instances in which birds, that had long lived in 

 certain trees, have died from homesickness when they were 

 felled. 



7. Nor has man himself neglected to avail himself of 

 trees as a dwelling or a home. Already Lucinius Mutia- 

 nus, an ex-consul of Lycia, took special pleasure in feasting 

 twenty-one guests in a hollow plane-tree ; and modern 

 travelers tell us of a gigantic baobab in Senegambia, the 

 interior of which is used as a public hall for national meet- 

 ings, while its portals are ornamented with rude, quaint 

 sculptures, cut out of the still living wood. The sacred 

 fig-tree of India, which, as Milton says, 



" Branching so broad along, that in the ground 

 The bending twigs take root, and daughters grow 

 About the mother-tree a pillar's shade 

 High overarched, with echoing walks between," 

 is worshiped as sacred, and the lazy, helpless priest, the 

 Bonze, builds himself a hut, not unlike a bird's cage, in its 

 branches, where he spends his life dreaming, in contempla- 

 tive indolence, under its cool, pleasant shade. 



8. Nay, whole nations live in the branches of trees. 

 There is a race of natives of South America, west of the 

 mouth of the Orinoco, the Guaranis, who have never yet 

 been completely subdued, thanks mainly to their curious 

 habitations. The great Humboldt tells us that they twine 

 most skillfully the leaf-stalks of the Mauritius palm into 

 cords, and weave them with great care into mats. These 

 they suspend high in the air from branch to branch, and 

 cover them with clay ; here they dwell, and in a dark night 

 the amazed and bewildered traveler may see the fires of 

 their dwellings high in the tops of lofty trees. 



0. Thus it is that vegetable and animal life go hand in 

 hand, showing that beautiful bond of love which pervades 

 all nature, even in its minor parts. Where there is life, there 



