HOW PLANTS LIVE AND WORK. 345 



the most delicious flavours of fruits have been developed as baits 

 for the allurement of such animals as are likely to scatter the seeds 

 to the best advantage. It is noteworthy that edible fruits are 

 generally of a colour which contrasts strongly with that of the 

 surrounding foliage, so that they are easily seen. 



The contrivances which plants have adopted to secure the due 

 dispersal of their seeds are quite as ingenious in their way as the 

 fertilisation devices I have already described. While wind-borne 

 pollen is so loosely fixed that the slightest breeze is sufficient to 

 carry it to other plants, it is generally the case that similarly 

 transported seeds are so firmly attached that they are only broken 

 away by gales strong enough to carry them a considerable dis- 

 tance. Other fruits are hooked, in order to catch the hairy hides 

 of feeding animals, and are thus dispersed. 



It is often found that an insect, which chiefly frequents flowers 

 of a definite colour, has its own colouring arranged so as to match 

 that of the flowers. This contrivance is also the result of natural 

 selection, and it obviously screens the animal from observation. 



It would be difficult to over-estimate the profound influence 

 which Darwin's theory has had upon biological science. It has 

 shown that the apparently chaotic assemblage of life-forms which 

 exists upon the earth has arisen in obedience to a definite law of 

 nature ; and we owe to Darwin a conception of creation which is 

 infinitely higher and more beautiful than any in vogue before his 

 time. The study of the most insignificant weeds growing by the 

 wayside, of the swarming life-forms which people every pond and 

 ditch, raises in the mind of the biologist visions of a process, 

 infinitely slow, " without haste, without rest," which has in the 

 course of ages evolved from a formless speck of primeval proto- 

 plasm, not only the Oak tree and the Rose, but Man himself. 



I have attempted in these five sections to show that plants, 

 which we are too prone to regard from a merely utilitarian point of 

 view, are worthy of the thoughtful and appreciative study of even 

 the most unscientific. 



The man who recognises, however dimly, that in every wayside 

 blossom he has a friend with something interesting to tell, has 

 pleasures utterly unknown to the learned pedants who 



" Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, 

 And all their botany is but Latin names." 



