PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 141 



ways. Here in the forest we see evidence of 

 enormous developments having taken place in 

 the past, and, what is of far greater importance, 

 actually in progress before our eyes. Some objec- 

 tors to evolution have gone so far as to state that 

 variation is mainly due to man's interference ; but 

 when it is considered that cultivation is applied for 

 the purpose of perpetuating certain characters, and 

 developing them at the expense of others, we see 

 at once this cannot be true. Even the original 

 divergences which he utilises took place entirely 

 apart from his influence, and however he may try 

 to produce certain changes, he can never succeed 

 unless the initiative has already been taken. 



The examples we have just given are illustrations 

 of the more active side of the great struggle, but a 

 thousand others might be quoted where plants at 

 first sight appear almost passive. Yet even here a 

 grand work is always in progress, in every case more 

 or less connected with the interdependence between 

 one life and another. Without the tree the epi- 

 phyte or parasite could not exist as such, without 

 the flower the bee would be starved, and without the 

 numerous fertilising agents most plants would be 

 unable to produce seeds. In temperate climates 

 the woods are made up of two or three species 

 sometimes of only one. These blossom almost 



