THE BOTANY OF A RAILWAY STATION 



139 



Let us take one group of plants the Fungi, and one 

 group of animals the Insects. I cannot find room 

 for more than one or two examples of each. Fungi 

 have been known to thrive in the saturated solution 

 of copper sulphate used in a Darnell's cell. Various 

 species find nourishment in almost every animal or 

 vegetable tissue, alive or dead, raw or manufactured. 

 Insects are known to feed upon organic matter of 

 every kind. Glacier ice harbours one species in 

 countless numbers. A small Beetle feeds upon argol 

 (crude potassium tartrate), and has lived and pro- 

 pagated for years in a stoppered bottle half full of 

 this substance, which is kept in my laboratory. 



We speak of life as a precious thing, and such it 

 really is. But we must admit that it is not precious 

 because of its rarity. There is an unlimited supply 

 of life of all kinds ; it is food and opportunity which 

 run short. Malthus and the new Poor Law have 

 interpreted nature truly enough. Population of every 

 kind is always tending to outrun the means of sub- 

 sistence. Of course it cannot actually do so, or 

 cannot do it long. There is consolation for the 

 anxious observer of Man and nature in the very 

 obvious reflection that intolerable evils, such as 

 starvation, are deadly, and work their own cure. The 

 fear of starvation is an evil too, but it is one of those 

 evils which brings forth good. All human arts and 

 activities orginate in the fear of starvation, and 

 decline when it is removed. The natural contri- 

 vances which delight us^by their ingenuity and 

 completeness are just as much the outcome of 

 difficulties about food and space as human arts. 



