210 SYMBIOGENESIS 



on terms which make it comparatively innocuous ; for the diet 

 of the hamadryad, or King cobra, consists almost entirely of 

 other snakes," i.e., the life and range of such a fastidious 

 creature are strictly limited and dependent. A creature of this 

 kind is so hopelessly divorced from its true complement in 

 nature, that not uncommonly it must starve in the midst of 

 plenty, which precarious condition itself is equivalent to a 

 pathological condition. Yet, as the Italians say, " Non fu 

 mai vista capra morta di fame." 



According to Prof. J. B. Farmer it is strictly in relation 

 to two overwhelmingly important functions, provision of water 

 and of photosynthesis, that vegetation has assumed its form. 

 The complexity of structure, he says, is intimately related 

 with a corresponding differentiation and specialisation of 

 function. The fungi and many parasites, according to this 

 botanist, have " solved " the great vegetable problem of 

 existence "in another way altogether." Assuredly, however, 

 the majority of them have not solved it in a satisfactory 

 manner, not at any rate in accordance with the "over- 

 whelmingly" important symbiogenetic principle which, I 

 hold, pre-eminently characterises normal plant adaptation. 



If, therefore, the exceptional case of the fungi and 

 other similar organisms that have " slipped out from the main 

 streams of evolution into the quiet backwaters of life " is 

 specially instructive, it is because it shows that genuine evolu- 

 tionary success depends mainly on the production of constant, 

 good and reliable character (with its pre-requisites of 

 symbiotic feeding), which is indispensable to and one of the 

 greatest assets of the world of life. The essential peculiarity 

 of the majority of fungi is not merely that they are very much 

 more nitrogenous than other plants, particularly as their 

 nitrogen contents represent but borrowed capital, but that they 

 have sacrificed a career of strenuous independence for one of 

 idle dependence, and consequently have lost character and 

 status and have become inferior to other plants with regard to 

 the production of bio-economic values in which they are 



