XXII. 



1fooll JBerries. 



THAT spray of holly in the smoking-room which re- 

 mains over from the Christmas festivities, with its red 

 berries gleaming from among their background and 

 setting of dark green leaves, has been teaching me a 

 curious story of plant-life as I lay lazily this morning 

 enjoying a fragrant and soothing Havana. Outside 

 there are holly- bushes fringing the lawn-tennis ground, 

 and a sprinkling of snow has set out the greenness of 

 leaf and the redness of berry better far than the neutral 

 tint of the smoking-room wall. The thought which 

 arose in my mind had reference to the uses of colour 

 in fruit, and to the possible advantages which accrue 

 to the holly tribe and to all its kith and kin which 

 possess coloured fruits conspicuously displayed. Time 

 was, when man's observation of things extended just 

 so far as the things themselves. 



Quite true ; my metaphysical friends, I know, will 

 argue for hours about " the nature of things in them- 

 selves." This smoking-room has heard learned talk, 

 prolonged into the small hours, about Aristotelian 

 notions and the Berkeleian philosophy of an outer world 

 which philosophers say we make out of ourselves 

 largely or completely. But in the science of nowadays 

 we have acquired the habit of going beyond objects to 



