NATURE AND NATURAL HISTORY 



Nature is so all-inclusive that we cannot say of 

 anything that it is not natural. It may be out of the 

 usual course of things, or contrary to some particu- 

 lar phase of nature, and yet it must be natural. We 

 may say that it is not natural for a butternut-tree to 

 produce hickory-nuts, or a peach-tree to yield pears, 

 yet if such a thing ever happened, it must be natu- 

 ral, because it would be a part of nature. All the re- 

 ported miracles would fall into the same category of 

 the natural. One species of tree grafted upon another 

 is still a bit of nature, a novelty brought about by 

 the hand of man, as are all our improved fruits and 

 grains. Nature accepts them, but does not guarantee 

 that the seed of the apple will produce a pippin or a 

 Baldwin. In the animal world inheritance is a much 

 more certain factor. Rarely is there a reversion to a 

 more primitive type. Improved grains and flowers 

 breed true, but improved fruits rarely do. Probably 

 the former, if left without man's care, would in time 

 revert to the wild type; all would drop what man 

 has given them and degenerate. Man himself degen- 

 erates toward the savage if long enough removed 

 from home and civilization. The dog goes back 

 toward the wolf, and the horse back toward its wild 

 ancestors. What we add to Nature is easily peeled 

 off, but what Nature adds to herself sticks. 







The atmosphere clothes the earth miles deep with 

 magic an invisible, ungraspable presence, bearing 

 303 



