CAUSE OF EVOLUTION 397 



microscope, side by side with the cell that does the think- 

 ing for the great inventor, Thomas Edison, compare 

 them critically and closely, they would appear to you to 

 be one and the same cell and the one could not be dis- 

 tinguished from the other. 



There is a plant in Persia called the Devil plant, that 

 has invented a scheme by which it is able to capture deer, 

 cattle and animals by the nose and kill them with poison, 

 and when the animal dies the plant grows in the soil 

 made rich by the decaying carcass. This plant (or rather 

 the cells that build it) makes a pair of spring hooks about 

 6 inches long and 4 inches apart at top, so as to fit over 

 the nose of the animal. The hooks spring inward and 

 are tough as steel. The following is a brief description 

 of the plant : 



"The Devil plant they call it in Persia, and well they 

 may, for it is more deadly to the flocks and herds that play 

 so important a part in their life than is the loco weed to 

 the herds of our southwestern states. 



It is in the fall that the Devil plant gets in its deadly 

 work. The flowers give place to seed pods with great 

 belly like capsules and long stiff claws like those of a 

 beast of prey. These are hidden under the brown and 

 yellow leaves and when a grazing animal a sheep, a 

 camel, a wild ass or an antelope for example browses 

 among the foliage, the claws hook themselves into its 

 nostrils. The animal tries to rub them off but the more 

 it rubs the deeper it forces the claw like hooks into its 

 skin. Its throat becomes so inflamed that it can neither 

 eat nor drink and consequently it dies of starvation and 

 pain. The animal's body lies in the open and decays and 

 into the decomposing flesh the hundreds of black seeds 

 contained in the capsules of the clawed pod are dis- 

 charged, For it seems that earth is not rich enough for 



