no idea of deriving a thousand seedlings from a 

 hickory, but perhaps one only, and allowing for 

 those that should come to naught, the boys and 

 the squirrels might have the rest to say nothing 

 of weevils, which get ahead of both when it comes 

 to chestnuts, being on hand to lay their eggs in 

 the flower. When the boy arrives, it is to find 

 them already in possession surely nine-tenths of 

 the law in this case. The chestnut-bur was seem- 

 ingly designed as a means of protection rather 

 than of transportation, unless it be that in remote 

 times the tertiary monkey got them in his coat, 

 or perhaps slyly pelted the mastodon with these 

 monster burs, and they were thus conveyed, as 

 now a dog will carry beggar-ticks. As a protection 

 it does not serve against its most insidious foe, the 

 larva of the weevil, which works not from with- 

 out but from within. Nature has treated the but- 

 ternut better by surrounding it with a husk, as 

 food for the grubs, which are content to go no 

 deeper. One is a case of armed resistance, the 

 other of diplomacy, and diplomacy wins. 



How evidently all Nature is flowing. It is as 

 though we stood on the banks of a river and saw 

 pass today arbutus, tomorrow, columbines, and 



121 



