170 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 



foods for other creatures, but as forces, also, which primarily 

 they all are, in their own struggle for life, arms and 

 armor in the same way as are the senses and the higher 

 faculties that have played such an important part in the 

 battles of the animal kingdom. 



With the finer qualities themselves, an ingenuity and skill 

 have also been developed in their use and application, which 

 seem sometimes to be almost human. Not a few of the 

 arts and devices of mimicry, that are so wonderful among 

 animals, have their counterparts in plants. How they 

 huddle together in glorious companionship for defense 

 against heat and cold. With what architectural wisdom 

 they send out their roots and build up and balance their 

 branches so as to hold and fortify their positions against 

 gravity and wind. With what shrewdness, while some of 

 them hide from animals and men, others find their protec- 

 tion by following in their steps. And when domesticated 

 and hedged in with fences, and defended with hoes, how 

 winningly for more of such armor, do they, as flowers, put 

 on their brightest colors, and as fruits clothe themselves in 

 their richest pulps. 



Especially do their wisdom and care, not to say love, 

 come out in what they do for their young. All plants, the 

 same as all animals, seem to reach the best they are capable 

 of in their position as parents, sonship being apparently 

 the axil out of Avhich branches all good, vegetable, animal, 

 human, and, if Christianity be true, even Divine. Un- 

 able to protect their fruit with claws and wings, like beasts 

 and birds, they do so, while it is immature, by making its 

 color green, like that of their leaves, so as to hide it from 

 view, and its taste sour and bitter, so that no ordinary 

 creature Avould think of putting it into its stomach. But 

 when it is ripe, and there is need of its being scattered 

 away from its parent stalk to find room and warmth for 

 its own further growth, they put on it, in direct contrast with 

 their leaves, all the bright colors of the cherry, berry, 

 apple, peach and pear, so as to attract the attention of 

 passers-by, and make its outside luscious and sweet as an in- 

 ducement for them to eat of it and carry it off, at the 

 same time wra])ping its inside germ, and that germ's own 

 special nutriment, in an armor which is ])roof against the 

 digestive assaults of even a wild animal's stomach.* How 



'Popular Science Monthly, vol. XXV., p. 4.'J3. 



