Marae

“ All the earth was running over with foliage and blossoms and young new-born things, as the week-old fawns slept beneath the acanthus shade, and the colts gambolled on the velvet softness of the mossy glades, and the pretty little foxes ran out of their earths in the moss-covered sandstone, and the yet prettier leverets stole in their mother's wake across a bed of hyacinths blue as the sky. ”

“ When we leave the beach and the mountain-top, the river and the pond, all the troubles of distribution begin; and since but a small proportion of plants in a typical flora belong to these stations, it follows that difficulties will dog our steps with the large majority of the plants. The agencies of dispersal now working around us, the current, the wind, the insect, the bird, and the bat, will explain many of the features of littoral and alpine floras and of the vegetation of ponds and rivers. Here we have in so many cases wide-ranging genera with the means of dispersal ready to hand. ”

“ One takes up a handful of the floating gulf-weed and finds, within the pale yellow leaves and berries, tiny pipe-fish, sea-horses, and the little nest-building antennarius, thus forming a buoyant home for parasites, crabs, and mollusks, itself a sort of mistletoe of the ocean. The young of the mackerel and the herring glance all about just beneath the surface near the shore, like myriad pieces of silver. ”

“ After a storm of wind the lee shore was marked with a dark-green line of weeds and horse-tails, torn up and drifted across, which had been thrown up by the little breakers beyond the usual level of the water. A mass of other weeds and horse-tails, boughs and leaves, remained floating; and now was seen a reversal of the habits of fishes. Every one knows that fishes seek the windward shore in a breeze for the insects blown in; but now, while the gale, though subsiding, still rippled the water, the best place to fish was on the lee shore, just at the edge of the drifted weeds. ”

“ An ample stream once held its winding course among them, but becoming choked at the further end with weeds and fallen leaves, and branches broken by the wind, it spread into a marsh, tenanted alike by the slow, creeping blind-worm, and water-newt, the black slug, and frogs of portentous size. ”

“ Whatever is beautiful, wondrous, or uncommon in the great classes of fish and Echinoderms, jelly-fishes and Polypes, and the Mollusks of all kinds, is crowded into the warm and crystal waters of the tropical ocean—rests in the white sands, clothes the rough cliffs, clings, where the room is already occupied, like a parasite, upon the first comers, or swims through the shallows and depths of the elements—while the mass of the vegetation is of a far inferior magnitude. ”

“ There was no sound on the moors except the rushing of swollen rivulets and the sough of the bay and the arbutus boughs blowing and rustling together; the woodland animals were in their forms, their lairs, their earths; the birds were all tucked away under the leafless willows or the thick ilex-oak foliage. The only creatures that rejoiced were the marsh frogs and the mallards. ”

“ Unlike the beaver's slowly maturing crops, his food supply is constantly provided in the annual growth of the marshes. Here in banks contiguous to endless store of succulent sedge and lily roots and shell-cased tidbits of mussels, he tunnels his stable water-portaled home, and out there, by the channel's edge, builds his sedge-thatched hut before the earliest frost falls upon the marshes. ”

“ At first everything goes perfectly: a tub with two fingers’ depth of water serves as a pond. On sunny days the ducklings bathe in it under the anxious eye of the hen.
Two weeks later, the tub no longer satisfies. It contains neither cresses crammed with tiny Shellfish nor Worms and Tadpoles, dainty morsels both. The time has come for dives and hunts among the tangle of the water-weeds; and for us the day of trouble has also come. How are we, right up at the top of the hill, to get water enough for a pond for our broods? In summer, we have hardly water to drink! ”

“ Many species of fish, as the Salmon, Smelt, and others, in forsaking the deep water, and approaching a suitable spawning station, leave the sea altogether for a time, ascend the rivers and their tributary streams, and, having deposited their eggs, return again to their usual haunts. Even a certain species of fish, inhabiting lakes, as the Roach, betake themselves to the tributary streams, as the most suitable places for spawning. ”

“ The most luxuriant vegetation of a tropical landscape cannot unfold as great wealth of form, while in the variety and splendour of colour it would stand far behind this garden landscape, which is strangely composed exclusively of animals, and not of plants; for, characteristic as the luxuriant development of vegetation of the temperate zones is of the sea bottom, the fullness and multiplicity of the marine Fauna is just as prominent in the regions of the tropics. ”

“ In these fine marls tubular passages, left by the roots of aquatic plants, frequently appear; and shells of freshwater (or land) species commonly occur. Heads and horns, and sometimes entire skeletons of the red deer, the Irish elk, beaver, &c., are buried in the marls or peat, under circumstances which indicate in some cases the drifting of their dead bodies by water, and in others require the supposition that the animals had entered the lake through choice or fear, and been drowned and covered by sediments. ”

“ Before we leave, hints of more deeply hidden secrets of the marsh may perhaps come to us. A swamp sparrow may show by its actions that its nest is not far away; from the depths of a ditch jungle the clatter of some rail comes faintly to our ears, and the distant croak of a night heron reaches us from its feeding-grounds, guarded by the deeper waters. ”

“ The great majority of water plants send their flowers up above the surface to be pollinated by wind or (more rarely) by insects. It may be noted that few of the more highly evolved groups of Seed{201} Plants are represented in the aquatic flora; wind-pollinated flowers of a rather primitive type of structure are the rule in our lakes and rivers; which points to an early assumption of the aquatic habit, and suggests that the land is more favourable than the water for the evolution of higher types. ”

“ They inhabit marshes, stagnant ponds, lakes, and even small rivers whose course is gentle; feeding on small water-animals, such as frogs and newts, the young of web-footed fowl, fresh-water snails, and insects; nor does the flesh of larger creatures drowned in the lakes, or bogged in the marshes, come amiss to them. The eggs are rounded, with a hard, white, calcareous shell; they are deposited in shallow cavities scraped in the soft earth on the margins of the waters in which they reside, whence the young, hatched by the heat of the sun, readily find their way into their proper element. ”

“ Grubs and worms descend to a great depth to get beyond the influence of the drought, and the soil is too parched and hard for digging; they then retire to the sea-shore, to marshes, fresh-water and salt, to cabbage and potato gardens, and in the last-named localities they are again disposed to become marauders. To fruit gardens they are rarely permitted to resort, or they would commit great ravages. ”

“ She only saw a sad wild country that was unknown to her, vegetation that grew scantier and sicklier at each step, green swamps that had a familiar look, and moorlands that looked endless, and had no living creature anywhere upon them save the meek and melancholy buffalo, and the wild mares and colts that here and there swept like a hurrying wind over the brown grasslands. ”

“ In the case of oceanic islands, however, we have to appeal to the seed. Since the fruits sink in sea-water even after prolonged drying, and since a few days’ immersion in sea-water, as I found, kills the floating plant, we are driven to the agency of birds. The fruits, which without appendages are a quarter of an inch (6 mm.) in length, are too large and heavy to be carried in dry mud adhering to birds. ”

“ In the river are mussels, and reeds that have edible white roots, and in the soddy meadows tubers of joint grass; all these at their best in the spring. On the slope the summer growth affords seeds; up the steep the one-leafed pines, an oily nut. That was really all they could depend upon, and that only at the mercy of the little gods of frost and rain. For the rest it was cunning against cunning, caution against skill, against quacking hordes of wild-fowl in the tulares, against pronghorn and bighorn and deer. ”

“ Species, it is well known, both of plants and animals, are limited to particular localities of [325] variable, and often of no great, extent. If marine, an alteration in the sea bottom will prove fatal to many. If terrestrial, an increase of altitude, the conversion of dry land into marshes and lakes, or of lakes and marshes into meadow and arid loamy soil, will completely alter the flora and fauna of the district in question. Look into any estuary or rocky pool along the shore of the ocean, swarming with testacea, and crustacea; every bowlder incrusted with corallines ”

“ Their food consists entirely of aquatic plants, either marine algae or freshwater grasses, upon which they browse beneath the surface, as the terrestrial herbivorous mammals do upon the green pastures on shore. To visit these pastures, they come in with the flood-tide and return with the ebb. They are generally gregarious, slow and inactive in their movements, mild, inoffensive, and apparently unintelligent in disposition. Though occasionally found stranded by the tide or waves, there is no evidence that they voluntarily leave the water to bask or feed on the shore. ”

“ In the higher and drier parts of the forest, where they left the creek and followed the beds of dead streams, slender ditches through which the water raced in torrents during the wet season, they were set upon by countless swarms of bees, a strange, stingless variety that covered them in a buzzing, crawling mass, struggling and fighting for the salt in the perspiration which exuded from the human bodies. ”

“ The greater proportion of the genera feed on animal matter, especially after decomposition has begun: a large number are exclusively confined to the deep waters, and approach the shoals and lands only during the spawning season. Many live in the sea, but daily pass many hours upon the rocky shores for the pleasure of basking in the sun; others live in marshy or moist ground, at a considerable distance from the water, and feed principally on vegetable food, especially the sugar-cane, of which they are extremely destructive. ”

“ It walks or runs with ease. The far-reaching grating note is usually uttered with the head thrown back; the food of refuse and carrion is supplemented by young lambs or alligators, birds, frogs, reptiles, land-crabs, worms, and insects. When on a tree, bush, or cliff, the large shallow nest, often renewed yearly, is made of sticks and lined with grass, leaves, roots, wool, or scraps of any sort; but, when on the ground or in swamps, reeds and herbage are commonly utilized. The three or four eggs ranging from white with red blotches to cinnamon with a few black marks. ”

“ This marsh land varies in width. In some portions of the river it appears to extend for about two miles on either side; in other parts farther than the eye can reach. In all cases the main country is a dead flat; now blazing and smoking beyond the limit of marshes, as the natives have fired the dry grass in all directions. Reeds, similar in appearance to bamboos but distinct from them, big water-grass, like sugarcanes, excellent fodder for the cattle, and the ever-present ambatch, cover the morasses. Innumerable mosquitoes. ”

“ Half of the fruit trees are dead, save for their lichen and moss and their nests in fork and niche and the robin musing in the branches.
The duck pond, deep below, is all in shadow. The alders lean over it. Some have fallen, and the moorhens have built on them, and the round vole sits there or drops off with the suddenness of fruit; but he cannot dive, for a million dead leaves are sunk or floating in the purple shallows.
Over all is the stillness of after harvest. ”

“ In the sea, the tropical plains with their tangled vegetation and plentiful animal life are represented by the still more uniform plain forming the submerged continental 13 shelf with its strange forests of flowerless plants, the seaweeds. These submarine jungles shelter hosts of animal species, many of which swarm in countless myriads. This life embraces all grades of invertebrates, such as the microscopic protozoa, sponges, radiate animals like the coral-polyps, starfishes, sea-urchins, etc., and crustaceans in vast variety, and, among vertebrates, includes fishes, reptiles, and mammals. ”

“ In swampy areas, such as the deltas at the mouths of great rivers, or in shallow lagoons bordering a coast margin, the jungles of ferns and tree-ferns, club-mosses and horse-tails, sedges, grasses, &c., grew and died down year by year, forming a consolidated mass of vegetable matter much in the same way that a peat bed or a mangrove swamp is accumulating organic deposits at the present time. ”

“ They are generally inhabitants of the fresh waters, and for the most part, prefer ponds and shallow lakes, in which they can investigate the bottom with their peculiar bills, without actually diving beneath the surface; yet at some seasons they are found along the borders of the sea. Their food generally consists of worms, mollusca, and aquatic insects, which they separate from the mud by the agency of the lamellæ at the margin of the bill; but most of them also feed upon seeds, fruits, and other vegetable substances. ”