66 THE INTER-RELATIONS OF
(Megachile) and many other Apiariae, which alone by their long tongues, can
imbibe the honey and collect the pollen of these flowers. The male Humble Bees
frequent them to the last, and often seem as if they were intoxicated with their
sweets."
Botany and Zoology.—Although the connection between plants
and birds is not so intimate as that between plants and insects
yet the avian fauna of a district is considerably modified by the
vegetation that therein prevails, and, moreover, some species of
birds are closely associated with certain plants or trees.
The dependence of the Red Grouse (Lagopus scoticus) on the
berries and heaths of the moors confines it to the mountain sides
of Scotland, and the broad-topped hills of Derbyshire and the
North of England, while to the corn districts the sportsman goes to
find the common Partridge (Perdix cinereus), though the Perdix
rufus, or Red-legged bird, dwells where seeds and berries most
abound. The Wood Grouse again, or Capercailzie (Tetrao urogallus),
now very rare in Britain, is only to be found where coniferous trees,
as the pine and juniper, form forests in the Northern lands.
The Woodpecker, though an insect-feeding bird, is so fitted by
Nature to bore into trees for its prey, by being furnished with a
barbed hard-ended long tongue, that its life must be dependent upon
arboreal vegetation. Another insect-eating bird, the Wheatear, fre-
quents downs and uplands where the Wild Thyme grows, to which
its favourite insects resort both to feed and to lay their eggs. The
downs above Eastbourne form such a happy hunting-ground, and
the trees at their foot are sometimes swarming with birds.
The Crested Titmouse finds a congenial habitat where resinous
evergreen trees abound, and the Nuthatch, as its name implies,
feeds on nuts as well as insects. And who that has an orchard
does not know how powerfully his cherry trees, when the food
is ripe and just ready to be gathered, will attract all the Blackbirds
of the neighbourhood. I once had a cherry tree entirely so
stripped of a fine untouched crop of fruit the day before it was
decided to get the cherries. Another lover of choice fruit is the
Blackcap ; but this visitor to our gardens pays its attentions to
bush rather than to tree fruit.
It is needless to point out how all herbivorous animals must be
affected in their distribution and abundance by the sufficiency or
insufficiency of the plants on which they best thrive.
The Buffalo, the Horse, and the Sheep, on the prairie, the pampas,
and the wide grassy plain, and the Elephant and Giraffe, in the