THE MILK IN THE COCO-NUT 181 



inside the softest of the three pores or pits at the end of 

 the shell, and surrounded by a vast quantity of nutritious 

 pulp, destined to feed and support it during its earliest un- 

 protected days, if not otherwise diverted by man or monkey. 

 But as whatever feeds a young plant will also feed an 

 animal, and as many animals betray a felonious desire to 

 appropriate to their own wicked ends the food- stuffs laid 

 up by the palm for the use of its own seedling, the coco- 

 nut has been compelled to inclose this particularly large 

 and rich kernel in a very solid and defensive shell. And, 

 once more, since the palm grows at a very great height 

 from the ground I have seen them up to ninety feet in 

 favourable circumstances this shell stands a very good 

 chance of getting broken in tumbling to the earth, so that 

 it has been necessary to surround it with a mass of soft 

 and yielding fibrous material, which breaks its fall, and 

 acts as a buffer to it when it comes in contact with the 

 soil beneath. So many protections has the coco-nut gra- 

 dually devised for itself by the continuous survival of the 

 best adapted amid numberless and endless spontaneous 

 variations of all its kind in past time. 



Now, when the coco-nut has actually reached the 

 ground at last, and proceeds to sprout in the spot where 

 chance (perhaps in the bodily shape of a disappointed mon- 

 key) has chosen to cast it, these numerous safeguards and 

 solid envelopes naturally begin to prove decided nuisances 

 to the embryo within. It starts under the great disadvan- 

 tage of being hermetically sealed within a solid wooden 

 shell, so that no water can possibly get at it to aid it as 

 most other seeds are aided in the process of germination. 

 Fancy yourself a seed-pea, anxious to sprout, but coated 

 all round with a hard covering of impermeable sealing- 

 wax, and you will be in a position faintly to appreciate 

 the unfortunate predicament of a grower coco- nut. Natural 



