14 A SHARP LOOKOUT. 



quickly. Accordingly it had started one large root, 

 by far the largest of all, for the shore along the top 

 of the log. This root, when I saw the tree, was six 

 or seven feet long, and had bridged more than half 

 the distance that separated the tree from the land. 



Was this a kind of intelligence ? If the shore had 

 lain in the other direction, no doubt at all but the 

 root would have started for the other side. I know 

 a yellow pine that stands on the side of a steep hill. 

 To make its position more secure, it has thrown out a 

 large root at right angles with its stem directly into 

 the bank above it, which acts as a stay or guy-rope. 

 It was positively the best thing tho tree could do. 

 The earth has washed away so that the root where it 

 leaves the tree is two feet above the surface of the 

 soil. 



Yet both these cases are easily explained, and with- 

 out attributing any power of choice, or act of intelli- 

 gent selection to the trees. In the case of the little 

 hemlock upon the partly submerged log, roots were 

 probably thrown out equally in all directions ; on all 

 sides but one they reached the water and stopped 

 growing ; the water checked them ; but on the land 

 side, the root on the top of the log, not meeting 

 with any obstacle of the kind, kept on growing, and 

 thus pushing its way toward the shore. It was a 

 case of survival, not of the fittest, but of that which 

 the situation favored the fittest with reference to 

 position. 



So with the pine-tree on the side of the hill. It 



