72 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



them, all of which that looked at all promising, they tried 

 their teeth on ; and, if the taste suited they ate on without 

 dread of consequences. Drupaceous fruits especially were 

 found almost uniformly wholesome, although the juice of 

 the bark &c. might be acrid or poisonous. It is curious 

 that in the Apocynea — an order notable for its abundant 

 milky, and usually poisonous juice — the fruits are rarely, or 

 very slightly, milky, and the succulent fruits (which are 

 found in about half the species) are almost invariably whole- 

 some. You know the Thevetias, whose large bony triangular 

 endocarps, strung together, form the rattles which the Uanpe 

 Indians tie round their ankles in their dances. The milk of 

 the bark is a deadly poison — Humboldt says a scratch from 

 a thumb-nail anointed with it is almost certain death. At 

 Marabitanas a well-grown tree of T, neriifolia grew near the 

 Commandante's house. It bore flowers and ripe fruits — drupes, 

 with a thin yellowish cuticle, and about as much flesh on 

 them as on an average plum ; and I noticed that the Com- 

 mandante's fowls greedily ate up the fleshy part of any fruit 

 that might chance to fall. Seeing this, I thought I might 

 safely eat of them ; so I gathered and ate four. What little 

 taste they had was rather pleasant, and no ill effects followed. 

 I had not then seen (as I saw a few years afterwards) what 

 a quantity of black pepper and tobacco a fowl can swallow 

 with impunity, or I might have thought the experiment rather 

 hazardous. 



" Many fruits and seeds are sought by animals of all 

 kinds for the sake of their farinaceous or oleaginous pro- 

 perties. The envelope of these, in any part of the world, 

 is not often gaily coloured, although some pods of Amazonian 

 Leguminosse are deep red, and the contained seeds are very 

 often painted or mottled. I suppose however it is about 

 the succulent, sweet or acid fruits — the drupes and berries — 

 you chiefly enquire. The great mass of these are certainly 

 as vividly coloured as any fruits of temperate climes— more 

 so indeed, in many cases, than the flowers that precede them. 

 Call to mind the bright reds and yellows of the Peach-palm, 

 the Mango, the enlarged fleshy pear-like petiole of the 



