A CHAT ABOUT PLANTS. 125 



well the common disease of their sweet friends, when so 

 much pollen adheres to their head that they cannot fly, 

 and must miserably perish, one by one, under the heavy 

 burden which these innocent-looking plants have compelled 

 them to carry. We have but little knowledge as yet of 

 the activity of life in the vegetable world, and of its mo- 

 mentous influence on the welfare of our own race. Few 

 only know that the gall-fly of Asia Minor decides on the 

 existence of ten thousands of human beings. As our clip- 

 pers and steamers carry the produce of the land from 

 continent to continent, so these tiny sailors of the air per- 

 form, under the direction of Divine Providence, the im- 

 portant duty of carrying pollen, or fertilizing dust, from 

 fig-tree to fig-tree. Without pollen there can be no figs, 

 and, consequently, on their activity and number depends 

 the productiveness of these trees; they, therefore, regulate 

 in fact the extensive and profitable fig trade of Smyrna. 

 A little, ugly beetle of Kamschatka has, in like manner, 

 more than once saved the entire population of the most 

 barren part of Greenland from apparently certain starva- 

 tion. He is a great thief in his way, and a most fastidious 

 gourmand, moreover. Nothing will satisfy him on a long 

 winter evening and we must charitably bear in mind that 

 these evenings sometimes last five months without inter- 

 ruption but a constant supply of lily bulbs. The lilies 

 are well content with this arrangement, for the being eaten 

 is as natural to them as to a Feejee-islander ; and they 

 are, as compensation, saved from being crowded to death 

 in a narrow space, whilst those that escape the little glut- 

 ton, shoot up merrily, next summer, in rich pastures. Still 



