LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-NO. 1114.-7 OCTOBER, 1865. From the Quarterly Review. 1. A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon 1854. 3. Three Visits to Madagascar during the Years 1853, 1854, 1856, with notices of the Natural History of the Country, &c. By the Rev. W. Ellis, F. H. S. London, 1859. 4. The Tropical World: a Popular Scientific Account of the Natural History of the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms. By Dr. G. Hartwig. London, 1863. 5. The Naturalist on the River Amazons: a Record of Adventures, Habits of Animals, &c., during Eleven Years of Travel. By Henry Walter Bates. London, 1863. view of discovering, if possible, some of We purpose in this article to bring before The ancients, before the time of Alexander's Indian expedition, were unacquainted with any tropical forms of plants, and great was their astonishment when they first beheld them : e THE naturalist will never have to complain, with Alexander, that he has no more worlds to conquer, so inexhaustible is the "Gigantic forms of plants and animals," as wide field of Nature, and so numerous are Humboldt says, "filled the imagination with the vast areas which as yet have never at exciting imagery. Writers from whose sever all, or only partially, been explored by trav- and scientific style any degree of inspiration ellers. What may not be in store for some elsewhere entirely absent, become poetical future adventurer in little-known regions; the height of the trees, ' to the summit of which when describing the habits of the elephant, what new and wonderful forms of animals an arrow cannot reach, and whose leaves are and plants may not reward the zealous trav- broader than the shields of infantry,'-the eller, when no less than eight thousand spe- bamboo, a light, feathery, arborescent grass, of cies of animals, new to science, have been which single joints (internodia) served as fourdiscovered by Mr. Bates during his eleven oared boats, - and the Indian fig-tree, whose years' residence on the Amazons? Nor is pendent branches take root around the parent it alone new forms of animated Nature that stem, which attains a diameter of twenty-eight await the enterprise of the naturalist; a feet, forming,' as Onesicritus expresses himself whole mine of valuable material, the work- with great truth to nature, a leafy canopy siming of which is attended with the greatest ilar to a many-pillard tent.'"* pleasure, lies before him in the discovery of new facts with regard to the habits, structure, and local distribution of animals and plants. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance to the philosophic naturalist of such studies in these days of thought and progress. The collector of natural curiosities may be content with the possession of a miscellaneous lot of objects, but the man of science pursues his investigations with a THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXI. It is not possible for language to describe the glory of the forests of the Amazon, and yet the silence and gloom of the Brazilian forests, so often mentioned by travellers, are striking realities. Let us read Mr. Bates's impressions of the interior of a primeval forest: * "Cosmos," vol. ii. p. 155. Sabine's Translation. "The silence and gloom,” he says, “are real- | ities, and the impression deepens on a longer acquaintance. The few sounds of birds are of that pensive and mysterious character which intensifies the feeling of solitude rather than imparts a sense of life and cheerfulness. Sometimes in the midst of the stillness a sudden yell or scream will startle one; this comes from some defenceless fruit-eating animal which is pounced upon by a tiger-cat or stealthy boaconstrictor. Morning and evening the howlingmonkeys make a most fearful and harrowing noise, under which it is difficult to keep up one's buoyancy of spirit. The feeling of inhospitable wildness which the forest is calculated to inspire is increased tenfold under this fearful uproar. Often even in the still hours of midday, a sudden crash will be heard resounding afar through the wilderness, as some great bough or entire tree falls to the ground. There are besides many sounds which it is impossible to account for. I found the natives generally as much at a loss in this respect as myself. Sometimes a sound is heard like the clang of an iron bar against a hard hollow tree, or a piercing cry rends the air; these are not repeated, and the succeeding silence tends to heighten the unpleasant impression which they make on the mind. With the natives it is always the curupíra, the wild man, or spirit of the forest, which produces all noises they are unable to explain." Mr. Bates has some exceedingly interesting observations on the tendency of animals and plants of the Brazilian forests to become climbers. Speaking of a swampy forest of Pará, he says: bulk of whose members are not climbers, seem to have been driven by circumstances to adopt this habit. The orders Leguminosa, Guttiferæ, Bignoniaceæ, Moracea, and others, furnish the greater number. There is even a climbing genus of palms(Desmoncus), the species of which are called in the Tupí language, Jacitára. These have slender, thickly spined and flexuous stems, which twine about the latter trees from one to the other, and grow to an incredible length. The leaves, which have the ordinary pinnate shape characteristic of the family, are emitted from the stems at long intervals, instead of being collected into a dense crown, and have at their tips a number of long recurved spines. These structures are excellent contrivances to enable the trees to secure themselves by in climbing, but they are a great nuisance to the traveller, for they sometimes hang over the pathway and catch the hat or clothes, dragging off the one or tearing the other as he passes. The number and variety of climbing trees in the Amazon forests are interesting, taken in connection with the fact of the very general tendency of the animals also to become climbers." Of this tendency amongst animals Mr. Bates thus writes: American monkeys, are climbers. There is "All the Amazonian, and in fact all South no group answering to the baboons of the Old World which live on the ground. The Gallinaceous birds of the country, the representatives of the fowls and pheasants of Asia and Africa, are all adapted by the position of the toes to perch on trees, and it is only on trees, at a great height, that they are to be seen. the bears (Cercoleptes), found only in the AmaA genus of Plantigrade Carnivora, allied to zonian forests, is entirely arboreal, and has a long flexible tail like that of certain monkeys. Many other similar instances could be enume haga, or carnivorous ground beetles, a great proportion of whose genera and species in these forest regions are, by the structure of their feet, fitted to live exclusively on the branches and leaves of trees." "The leafy crowns of the trees, scarcely two of which could be seen together of the same kind, were now far away above us, in another world as it were. We could only see at times, where there was a break above, the tracery of the foliage against the clear blue sky. Some-rated, but I will mention only the Geodeptimes the leaves were palmate, at others finely cut or feathery like the leaves of Mimosa. Below, the tree-trunks were everywhere linked together by sipós; the woody, flexible stems of climbing and creeping trees, whose foliage is far away above, mingled with that of the latter independent trees. Some were twisted in strands like cables, others had thick stems contorted in every variety of shape, entwining snake-like round the tree-trunks, or forming gigantic loops and coils among the larger branches; others again were of zigzag shape or indented like the steps of a staircase, sweeping from the ground to a giddy height.", Of these climbing plants he adds: "It interested me much afterwards to find that these climbing trees do not form any particular family or genus. There is no order of plants whose especial habit is to climb, but species of many of the most diverse families, the Strange to the European must be the appearance of the numerous woody lianas, or air-roots, of parasitic plants of the family Aracea, of which the well-known cuckoopint, or Arum maculatum of this country, is a non-epiphytous member, which sit on the branches of the trees above, and “hang down straight as plumb-lines," some singly, others in leashes; some reaching half-way to the ground, others touching it, and taking root in the ground. Here, too, in these forests of Pará, besides palms of various species, "some twenty to thirty feet high, others small and delicate, with stems no thicker than a finger," of the genus Bactris, The We cannot yet tear ourselves away from these forests of Pará. We can well understand the intense interest with which Mr. Bates visited these delightful scenes month after month in different seasons, so as to obtain something like a fair notion of their animal and vegetable productions. It is enough to made a naturalist's mouth water for a week together to think of the many successful strolls which Mr. Bates took amid the shades of these forests. For several months, he tells us, he used to visit this district two or three days every week, and never failed to obtain some species new to him of bird, reptile, or insect: producing bunches of fruit with grape-like species until proved to be the same. juice, masses of a species of banana observations of this admirable naturalist (Urania Amazonica), a beautiful plant, on other points in the history of the butwith leaves "like broad sword-blades," terflies of the Amazons, are highly imporeight feet long, and one foot broad, add tant and deeply interesting. We must refresh interest to the scene. These leaves cur to this subject by-and-by. rise straight upwards alternately from the top of a stem five or six feet high. Various kinds of Marants, a family of plants rich in amylaceous qualities (of which the Maranta arundinacea, though not an American plant, yields the best arrowroot of commerce), clothe the ground, conspicuous for their broad, glossy leaves. Ferns of beautiful and varied forms decorate the tree-trunks, together with the large fleshy heart-shaped leaves of the Pothos plant. Gigantic grasses, such as bamboos, form arches over the pathways. "The appearance of this part of the forest was strange in the extreme; description can convey no adequate idea of it. The reader who has visited Kew, may form some "This district," he says, "seemed to be an notion by conceiving a vegetation like that epitome of all that the humid portions of the in the great palm-house spread over a large Pará forest could produce. This endless divertract of swampy ground, but he must fancy sity, the coolness of the air, the varied and it mingled with large exogenous trees, simi- strange forms of vegetation, the entire freedom lar to our oaks and elms, covered with the solemn gloom and silence, combined to from mosquitoes and other pests, and even creepers and parasites, and figure to him- make my rambles through it always pleasant self the ground encumbered with fallen as well as profitable. Such places are paradises and rotting trunks, branches, and leaves, to a naturalist, and if he be of a contemplative the whole illuminated by a glowing vertical turn there is no situation more favourable for sun, and reeking with moisture!" Amid his indulging the tendency. There is somethese "swampy shades" numerous butter- thing in a trophical forest akin to the ocean in flies delight to flit. An entomologist in its effects on the mind. Man feels so completeEngland is proud, indeed, when he succeeds ly his insignificance there and the vastness of nature. A naturalist cannot help reflecting in capturing the beautiful and scarce Camon the vegetable forces manifested on so grand berwell Beauty (Vanessa antiopa) or the a scale around him." splendid Purple Emperor (Apatura iris), but these fine species do not exceed three inches in expanse of wing, while the glossy, blue, and black Morpho Achilles, measures six inches or more. The velvety black Papilio Sesostris, with a large silky green patch on its wings, and other species of this genus, are almost exclusively inhabitants of the moist shades of the forest. The beautiful Epicalea ancea," one of the most richly coloured of the whole tribe of butterflies, being black, decorated with broad stripes of pale blue and orange, delights to settle on the broad leaves of the Urania and other similar plants." But, like many other natural beauties, it is difficult to gain possession of, darting off with lightning speed when approached. Mr. Bates tells us that it is the males only of the different species which are brilliantly coloured, the females being plainer, and often so utterly unlike their partners that they are generally held to be different Whatever difference Mr. Wallace and Mr. Bates are well known advocates of Mr. Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. The former gentlefor four years, and he has published a very man was Mr. Bates's companion in travel interesting account of his voyage on his reof opinion there may be with respect to the turn to England. * celebrated work which Mr. Darwin gave to the world four or five years ago, unbiased and thoughtful naturalists must recognize the force with which the author supports with which he encounters every difficulty. many of his arguments, and the fairness The competition displayed by organized beings is strikingly manifested in the Brazilian forests. So unmistakable is this fact, * The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society bears ample testimony to the zeal and energy of Mr. Wallace in collecting insects from Singapore, Malacca, Borneo, Celebes, and other islands of Malaysia. " that Burmeister, a German traveller, was painfully impressed with the contemplation of the emulation and "spirit of restless selfishness which the vegetation of a tropical forest displayed. "He thought the softness, earnestness, and repose of European woodland scenery were far more pleasing, and that these formed one of the causes of the superior moral character of European nations:" a curious question, which we leave to the consideration of moral philosophers. The emulation displayed by the plants and trees of the forests of Pará is thus spoken of by Mr. Bates: mens. The base of its stem would be unable The strangling properties of some of the fig-tree family are indeed very remarkable, and may be witnessed not only in South America, but in India, Ceylon, and Australia. Frazer observed several kinds of Ficus, more than 150 feet high, embracing huge ironbark trees in the forests at Moreton Bay. The Ficus repens, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, is often to be seen clambering over rocks, like ivy, turning through heaps of stones, or ascending some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch. The small plants of this family, of which the Murdering Liana is one species, grow and reproduce their kind from seeds deposited in the ground; but the huge representatives of the family, such as the Banyan-tree, whose "Bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree;" and the Peepul, or sacred Bo-tree of the Buddhists (Ficus religiosa) originate from seeds carried by birds to upper portions of some palm or other tree. Fig-trees, as Sir E. Tennent has remarked, are "the Thugs of the vegetable world; for, though not necessarily epiphytic, it may be said that, in point of fact, no single plant comes to perfection or acquires even partial development without the destruction of some other on which to fix itself as its supporter." The mode of growth of these trees is well described by the excellent writer just mentioned, and we shall make use of his own language: "In these tropical forests each plant and tree seems to be striving to outvie its fellow, strug gling upward towards light and air-branch, and leaf, and stem-regardless of its neighbours. Parasitic plants are seen fastening with firm grip on others, making use of them with reckless indifference, as instruments for their own advancement. Live and let live is clearly not the maxim taught in these wildernesses. There is one kind of parasitic tree very common near Pará, which exhibits this feature in a very prominent manner. It is called the Sipó Matador, or the Murderer Siana. It belongs to the fig order, and has been described by Von Martius in the "Atlas to Spix and Martius's Travels." I observed many specito bear the weight of the upper growth; it is obliged, therefore, to support itself on a tree of another species. In this it is not essentially different from other climbing trees and plants, but the way the matador sets about it is peculiar, and produces certainly a disagreeable impression. It springs up close to the tree on which it intends to fix itself, and the wood of its stem grows by spreading itself like a plastic mould over one side of the trunk of its supporter. It then puts forth, from each side an armlike branch, which grows rapidly, and looks as though a stream of sap were flowing and hardening as it went. This adheres closely to the trunk of the victim, and the two arins meet on the opposite side and blend together. These arms are put forth at somewhat regular intervals in mounting upwards, and the victim, when its strangler is full grown becomes tightly clasped by a number of inflexible rings. These gradually grow larger as the murderer flourish-stem it throws out no buds or flowers; the true es, rearing its crown of foliage to the sky mingled with that of its neighbour, and in course of time they kill it by stopping the flow of its sap The strange spectacle then remains of the selfish parasite clasping in its arms the lifeless and decaying body of its victim which had been a help to its own growth. Its ends have been erved-it has flowered and fruited, reproduced and disseminated its kind; and now when the dead trunk moulders away, its own end approaches; its support is gone and itself also falls." "The family generally make their first appearance as slender roots hanging from the Crown or trunk of some other tree, generally a the seed carried thither by some bird which had palm, among the moist bases of whose leaves fed upon the fig, begins to germinate. This trunk of the supporting tree with a network of root, branching as it descends, envelopes the wood, and at length penetrating the ground, attains the dimensions of a stem. But unlike a stem, with its branches, its foliage, and fruit ** Ceylon,” i. p. 95. But not trees alone do these vegetable cious chambers, and may be compared to garroters embrace in their fatal grasp; stalls in a stable; some of them are large ancient monuments also are destroyed by enough to hold half-a-dozen persons." What these formidable assailants. Sir E. Ten- are these buttresses, how do they originate, nent has given an engraving of a fig-tree and what is their use? We have already on the ruins at Pollanarrua, in Ceylon, seen how great is the competition amongst which had fixed itself on the walls- a the trees of a primeval forest, and how curious sight, indeed" its roots streaming every square inch is eagerly battled for by downwards over the ruins as if they had the number of competitors. In consequence once been fluid, following every sinuosity of of this, it is obvious that lateral growth of the building and terraces till they reach roots in the earth is a difficult matter. "Nethe earth." An extremely interesting series cessity being the mother of invention," the of drawings is now to be seen in the Lin- roots, unable to expand laterally, "raise nean Society's room at Burlington House, themselves ridge-like out of the earth, growillustrating the mode of growth of another ing gradually upwards as the increasing strangling or murdering tree, of New Zea- height of the tree required augmented supland, belonging to an entirely different port." A beautiful compensation, truly, order from that to which the figs belong and full of deep interest! As Londoners (Urticaceae), namely, to one of the Myr- add upper stories to their houses where tacea. The association of garroting habits competition has rendered lateral additions with those of the stinging nettle family is impossible, so these gigantic trees, in order apt enough, we may be inclined to think; to sustain the massive crown and trunk, but it is rather disappointing to meet with strengthen their roots by upper additions. these disagreeable peculiarities in the case of the Myrtle group, but such is the fact: the Rata, or Metrosideros robusta-as we believe is the species-climbs to the summits of mighty trees of the forest of Wangaroa, and kills them in its iron grasp. But, notwithstanding these unpleasant impressions which "the reckless energy of the vegetation might produce" in the traveller's mind, there is plenty in tropical nature to counteract them: "There is the incomparable beauty and variety of the foliage, the vivid colour, the richness and exuberance everywhere displayed, which make the richest woodland scenery in Northern Europe a sterile desert in comparison. But it is especially the enjoyment of life manifested by individual existences which compensates for the destruction and pain caused by the inevitable competition. Although this competition is nowhere more active, and the dangers to which each individual is exposed nowhere more numerous, yet nowhere is this enjoyment more vividly displayed." Mr. Bates mentions a peculiar feature in some of the colossal trees which here and there monopolize a large space in the forests. The height of some of these giants he estimates at from 180 to 200 feet, whose "vast dome of foliage rises above the other forest trees as a domed cathedral does above the other buildings in a city." In most of the large trees of different species is to be seen "a growth of buttress-shaped projections around the lower part of their stems. The spaces between these buttresses which are generally thin walls of wood-form spa One of the most striking features in tropicals scenery is the suddenness with which the leaves and blossoms spring into full beauty. "Some mornings 'a single tree would appear in flower amidst what was the preceding evening a uniform green mass of forest, a dome of blossom suddenly created as if by magic." In the early mornings, soon after dawn, the sky is always without a cloud, the thermometer marking 72° or 73° Fahr. Now all nature is fresh, and the birds in the full enjoyment of their existence, the "shrill yelping" of the toucans being frequently heard from their abodes amongst the wild fruit-trees of the forest; flocks of parrots appear in distinct relief against the blue sky, always two by two, chattering to each other, the pairs being separated by regular intervals, too high, however, to reveal the bright colours of their plumage. The greatest heat of the day is about two o'clock, by which time, the thermometer being 92° or 93° Fahr., "every voice of bird or mammal is hushed: only in the trees is heard at intervals the harsh whirr of a cicada. The leaves which were so moist and fresh in early morning, now become lax and drooping, and the flowers shed their petals. The Indian and Mulatto inhabitants sleep in their hammocks or sit on mats in the shade, too languid even to talk." Mr. Bates has given a graphic picture of tropical nature at the approach of rain: "First, the cool sea-breeze which commenced to blow about ten o'clock, and which had increased in force with the increasing power of the sun, would flag and finally die away. The |