56 COLIX CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



Instantia contradictories non movet. Once let a saw 

 take deep root in the rural mind, and no experience will 

 ever oust it. We have another local saying hereabouts, 

 that " Godshill plain is a sign of rain." Now, Godshill 

 stands on the very verge of the horizon, and is only 

 visible in very clear set-fair summer weather ; but week 

 after week in fine summers every inhabitant of the 

 village goes to bed nightly muttering to himself that it 

 will rain to-morrow because Godshill is seen so distinctly 

 this evening. 



The yearly rejuvenescence of the trees in the fields 

 around us, though habit has somewhat dulled our ap- 

 preciation of its significance, is yet a very beautiful and 

 a very suggestive phenomenon. Strictly speaking, ac- 

 cording to the view adopted by our most philosophical 

 biologists, the leaf, not the plant, is the real individual 

 of the vegetable world ; and the tree as a whole is in 

 fact a great united colony of such separate individuals. 

 One may compare it to a coral-branch covered by thou- 

 sands of little living polypes, or to a sponge made up of 

 myriads of tiny jelly-like beings. Each leaf sprouts, 

 lives, and dies independently, without its death at all 

 affecting the general life of the community to which it 

 belongs ; and the seed that the tree as a whole sends 

 forth to perpetuate its kind is not so much a new indi- 

 vidual as the germ of a whole new colony. It resembles 

 rather a swarm of bees going forth to found a new hive 

 than a mere single young individual cast upon the world 

 on his own account. Yet the leaf differs from the coral 

 polype in one important particular : its life is carried on 

 in subordination to the life of the whole tree of which it 

 forms a part. Sap and protoplasm are supplied to it 

 from the older organs behind. It is like some member 

 of a civilized community whose own separate functions 



