PERSONALITY OF PLANTS 
symbiosis; they most frequently occur between 
plants and insects, but the plants also have their 
working agreements with members of the other 
two great kingdoms of life. In fact, all Nature 
is a vast system of checks and balances, with 
every creature preying more or less upon every 
other creature, except when they can gain more 
by joining their efforts. Certain Humming- 
Birds lie in wait near plants which by their nec- 
tar-sweets attract swarms of insects, and hard 
by, Snakes lie in wait for the Birds. The Birds 
rid the plants of destroying pests; the part of 
the Snakes in a beneficent scheme of existence 
is not so apparent, but merely because we can- 
not see good in a thing is no argument that it 
does not exist. 
Many of the most important alliances of 
plants are made in response to the law that 
“Nature abhors perpetual self-fertilization”. 
This principle is one of the greatest in plant- 
dom; there is a constant necessity for the inter- 
crossing of independent life-streams. The 
plants go to great lengths to see that the multi- 
plication and evolution of the species is prop- 
erly carried on. 
[70] 
