256 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



much diligence and success, in a tender and even 

 affectionate manner. The victims are called " hosts " 

 or "foster-plants ;" but it is not difficult to see that 

 all they get by their generous hospitality in enter- 

 taining such pests is robbery and murder, and that 

 they are only " foster-plants " in the sense that the 

 bird was foster-mother to the serpent's eggs which 

 ancient fable says were placed under her to hatch, 

 and whose successful result was to issue forth and 

 destroy the pseudo-parent ! 



Our mildews, rusts, smuts, potato, vine, holly- 

 hock, and other diseases, our pea- blights, rose- 

 blights, etc., only too surely proclaim the successful 

 depredations of these vegetable barbarians, strong 

 in their numbers and ferocity, like those hordes of 

 Goths and Huns who burst like a flood upon and 

 overcame the high civilisation of ancient Rome. 



