This vegetable usurper produces immense crops of small purple figs, the favourite food of many birds.  So bountiful are its crops, and so much are they appreciated, that one perceives, almost without reflection, its due and proper place in the harmony of nature.  To complete the cycle, birds frequently, after eating the fruit, “strop” their beaks on the bark of a neighbouring tree.  Now and again a seed thus finds favourable conditions for its germination, and then the parasite sends exploring roots to the ground, forming as they descend intricate lace-work, while shoots repeat a similar process as they climb further up the trunk and among the branches.  Then the fate of the host seems less cruel, for the end is speedier.

Delicious fruit is produced by a somewhat similar fig (VALIDINERVIS) growing in the locality and displaying, though not in such a cruel manner, parasitical tendencies.  Passing from green to orange with deep red spots to rich purple, the fruit—­about the size of an average grape—­indicates arrival at maturity by the exudation of a drop of nectar.  Clear as crystal, the nectar partially solidifies.  Fragrant and luscious, pendant from the polished fruit, this exuberant insignia of perfection, this glittering drop of vital essence, attracts birds of all degree.  It is a liqueur that none can resist, and which seems, so noisy and demonstrative do they all become, to have a highly exhilarating effect on their nerves.  Birds ordinarily mute are vociferous, and the rowdy ones—­the varied honey-eater as an example—­losing all control of their tongues, call and whistle in ecstasy.  The best of the fig-tree’s life is given for the intoxication of unreflecting birds.

TREE GROG

Few of the forest trees are more picturesque than the paper-bark or tea-tree (melaleuca LEUCADENDRON), the “Tee-doo” of the blacks.  It is of free and stately growth, the bark white, compacted of numerous sheets as thin as tissue paper.  When a great wind stripped the superficial layers, exposing the reddish-brown epidermis, the whole foreground was transfigured.  All during the night alone in the house, I heard the great trees complaining against the molestation of the wind, groaning in strife and fright; but little had I thought that the violation they had endured had been so coarse and lawless.  The chaste trees had been incontinently stripped of their decent white vestiture, leaving their limbs naked and bare.  In the daylight they still moaned, throwing their almost leafless branches about despairingly, their flesh-tints—­dingy red—­giving to the scene a strangely unfamiliar glow.  This outrage was one of the most uncivil of the wrong-doings of the storm wind “Leonta.”  But within a week or so the trees assumed whiter than ever robes; pure and stainless, the breeze had merely removed soiled linen.  The picture had been restored by the most ideal of all artists.