( 183 ) 



THE FAUNA OF "RESERVOIR-PLANTS." 

 By Hugh Scott, M.A. (Cantab.), F.L.S., F.E.S. 



(Curator in Entomology in the University of Cambridge.) 



It has long been known that a number of insects and other 

 animals are to be found in the water and detritus which accumu- 

 late in the hollow leaf-bases and other receptacles possessed by 

 various tropical plants. But perhaps it is not a matter of 

 common knowledge how extensive and diversified is the fauna 

 dwelling in such situations, how largely peculiar it is to its 

 habitat, and how remarkable in some cases are its relations to 

 its curious environment. The present writer became interested 

 in this subject in 1908-9 while engaged in collecting the inverte- 

 brate fauna of the Seychelles Islands, and his interest was 

 increased in 1912 by a slight examination in Trinidad of the 

 fauna of certain epiphytic Bromeliacece. These latter are the 

 most interesting of all reservoir-plants, and much has been 

 written of their fauna. Recently there has appeared a long and 

 most interesting paper entitled "Les Bromeliacees epiphytes 

 considerees comme milieu biologique," * in which the author, 

 Monsieur C. Picado, embodies the results of an extended study 

 of the inter-relations between these plants and their fauna. 

 Therefore it may not be inopportune to attempt to give some 

 general account of the fauna of reservoir-plants as a whole, and 

 of Bromeliacece in particular, in relation to its environment. 



Many widely different plants possess receptacles of one kind 

 and another in which water can accumulate, and it seems best 

 to adopt Picado's name "reservoir-plants" to include the whole 

 of them. The term " terrestrial waters " is used to denote 

 pools, &c, on the ground, as opposed to those elevated above 

 the ground in plant-receptacles. 



Permanent marshes and other standing terrestrial waters do 



* Bull. Sci. France et Belgique, ser. 7, vol. 47, fascic. 3, 1918, pp. 215- 

 360, pi. 6-24. 



