140 Chapters in Modern Botany chap. 



consult the researches of Riley, Packard, and others in the 

 Bulletins of the United States Entomological Commission, 

 from which many detailed illustrations of the web of life 

 may be gleaned. 



Oats and Clover. — We have only given a few illustra- 

 tions of the infinite number of interactions between plants 

 and animals ; other examples and of more importance, e.g. 

 in connection with the fertilisation of the flowers and the 

 scattering of seeds, will be referred to again. As with 

 insectivorous or moving plants, the writer's aim is to 

 familiarise the reader with the essential point of view at 

 which Darwin has placed us, — his appreciation of the dra- 

 matic complexity of nature ; as also of the task of the least. 

 Nature is no longer a mere confused multitude of specimens 

 to be collected and analysed, but each organism is linked 

 with others as consecutively as in the " House that Jack 

 Built " ; nay, with indefinite cross relations as well : what 

 seemed a unit is a link ; what seemed a chain is but a 

 thread within the labyrinthine web of nature. That in 

 thus opening out for us this new and fascinating study of 

 bionomics, he has exaggerated the importance of the selective 

 factor in evolution, and that the drama is not merely of 

 incident and adventure but of character also, is a secondary 

 consideration, though an important one ; since but for 

 Darwin we might hardly yet have realised that there is an 

 organic drama at all. 



He takes a ball of mud from off the leg of a bird, and 

 finds that out of it no less than eighty seeds germinate I 

 He shows how cattle absolutely detennine the existence of 

 the Scotch fir on the Surrey heath, or how insects deter- 

 mine the absence of wild cattle and horses in Paraguay. 

 "If certain insectivorous birds were to decrease in Para- 

 guay, the parasitic insects would probably increase ; and 

 this would lessen the number of flies which destroy the 



