THE HOSPITALITIES OF NA TURE. 



43 



shine ; and on the raw new walls which he builds 

 around his possessions, to separate them from nature's 

 wastes, she spreads her hoary nebulae of vegetation. 

 Man's works are thus made kindred to the earth and 

 the elements : and nature, by her hospitalities, makes 

 them at home in every situation. 



Some objects are more hospitable than others. The 

 beech, of all trees, is perhaps the most self-contained. 

 It fills out its trunk so thoroughly ; its bark is so hard 

 and stuffed and rounded with its wood, that it has not a 

 rift nor a crevice in which any living thing might find 

 refuge. No moss forms a green tuft upon it ; no leafy 

 or shrubby lichen finds a foot-hold on its smooth bark. 

 And even the crustaceous species that consist of a 

 mere film of grey matter grow thinner on its hard repel- 

 lent surface than on the rock itself. They cling so 

 closely that they cannot be separated. No botanist 

 would go to the beech expecting to find on its trunk 

 the wealth of lowly plants in which he delights. To 

 the entomologist it is equally uninteresting, the number 

 of insects that frequent it being exceedingly few. Nor 

 is it chosen usually by birds to build their nests on its 

 boughs. Darwin mentions that worms hardly ever 

 make their curious castings under its shade. The 

 ground beneath it nourishes no green grasses, and only 

 its brown mast and polished three-cornered nuts carpet 

 the soil. 



Why is the beech so inhospitable ? Why does it thus 

 stand alone, apart from the rest of creation, and 

 proudly maintain its own self-sufficient existence? It 



