48 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



duce the most striking and luxuriant forms of life. It may 

 be safely asserted that some of these trees now standing 

 were in existence when Porus drove his squadrons of ele- 

 phants against the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander the 

 Great, in the hope to save his kingdom from the dominion 

 of the world's conqueror. 



7. The Hindoos regard these trees as sacred, and un- 

 der their shade perform many acts of religious signifi- 

 cance. It is a singular fact that the banyan is frequent- 

 ly found sprouting up on the spot where the Hindoo 

 widow has committed suttee — a fact which causes the 

 ignorant native to regard it with tenfold superstitious rev- 

 erence. The natural explanation of this phenomenon is, 

 that the birds, attracted to the spot where the suttee is 

 performed, in search of food, drop the seeds, which speed- 

 ily spring up from the congenial soil. 



THE EUCALYPTUS. 



1. A French botanist, who accompanied an expedi- 

 tion in search of the lost navigator, La Perouse, about the 

 year 1790, first described a hitherto unknown tree, which 

 he found constituting the chief part of the forests around 

 Botany Bay, Australia. From the fact that the flower- 

 bud has on it a cover not unlike the lid of a tiny sugar- 

 bowl, he called it the Eucalyptus — which means " well 

 covered." The shape of the flower-bud above was very 

 much like the globular brass buttons then in use, and 

 hence he gave to the variety the specific name of globulus ; 

 so the bluegum-tree is known to-day in science as the Eu- 

 calyptus globulus. 



2. As Australia and the adjacent islands became better 

 known, it was found that a large part of the forests was 



