THE MILK IN TEE COCOA-NUT, 53 



bly in the native state from almost all possible animal depredators. 

 First of all, the actual nut or seed itself consists of a tiny embryo plant, 

 placed just inside the softest of the three pores or pits at the end of the 

 shell, and surrounded by a vast quantity of nutritious pulp, destined to 

 feed and support it during its earliest unprotected days, if not other- 

 wise diverted by man or monkey. But, as whatever feeds a young 

 plant will also feed an animal, and as many animals betray a felonious 

 desire to appropriate to their own wicked ends the food-stuffs laid up 

 by the palm for the use of its own seedling, the cocoa-nut has been 

 compelled to inclose this particularly large and rich kernel in a very 

 solid and defensive shell. And, once more, since the palm grows at 

 a very great height from the ground — I have seen them up to ninety 

 feet in favorable circumstances — this shell stands a very good chance 

 of getting broken in tumbling to the earth, so that it has been neces- 

 sary to surround it with a mass of soft and yielding fibrous material, 

 which breaks its fall, and acts as a buffer to it when it comes in con- 

 tact with the soil beneath. So many protections has the cocoa-nut 

 gradually devised for itself by the continuous survival of the best 

 adapted among numberless and endless spontaneous variations of all 

 its kind in past time. 



Now, when the cocoa-nut has actually reached the ground at last, 

 and proceeds to sprout in the spot where chance (perhaps in the bodily 

 shape of a disappointed monkey) has chosen to cast it, these numer- 

 ous safeguards and solid envelopes naturally begin to prove decided 

 nuisances to the embryo within. It starts under the great disadvan- 

 tage of being hermetically sealed within a solid wooden shell, so that 

 no water can possibly get at it to aid it as most other seeds are aided 

 in the process of germination. Fancy yourself a seed-pea, anxious to 

 sprout, but coated all round with a hard covering of impermeable 

 sealing-wax, and you will be in a position faintly to appreciate the un- 

 fortunate predicament of a grower cocoa-nut. Natural selection, how- 

 ever — that deus ex machina of modern science, which can perform 

 such endless wonders, if only you give it time enough to work in and 

 variations enough to work upon — natural selection has come to the 

 rescue of the unhappy plant by leaving it a little hole at the top of 

 the shell, out of which it can push its feathery green head without 

 difficulty. Everybody knows that if you look at the sharp end of a 

 cocoa-nut you will see three little brown pits or depressions on its sur- 

 face. Most people also know that two of these are firmly stopped up 

 (for a reason to which I shall presently recur), but that the third one 

 is only closed by a slight film or very thin shell, which can be easily 

 bored through with a pocket-knife, so as to let the milk run off before 

 cracking the shell. So much we have all learned during our ardent 

 pursuit of natural knowledge on half-holidays in early life. But we 

 probably then failed to observe that just opposite this soft hole lies a 

 small, roundish knob, imbedded in the pulp or eatable portion, which 



