Some Wayside Problems 49 



And even in those instances which the champions of 

 the evolutionary dogma cite on its behalf, may it not 

 sometimes be that the explanations offered are more 

 apparent than real ? To take, for example, the case of 

 the acorns. They, we are told, have survived because 

 they by their increasing hardness beat off various tribes 

 of enemies that had lived by opening them ; something 

 in the same fashion that ironclad ships have lived down 

 the ordnance of the days of Nelson. But, firstly, would 

 not a small development of poison in their kernel, of 

 strychnine or prussic acid, have proved more easily 

 effectual than a great deal of external armour? And 

 might we not therefore most naturally have expected 

 all threatened fruits of this sort to have by this time 

 become deadly ? And, secondly, is it quite certain that 

 acorns have really benefited by having killed off all other 

 enemies but Squirrels, if Squirrels remain? It is not 

 the number of species, but of individuals that is impor- 

 tant, and there may easily be as many individual Squirrels 

 in the woods now as there were individual acorn-eating 

 animals fifty centuries ago, though recruited from a 

 dozen different tribes. 



It is, I hold, a wholesome and useful practice to check 

 the dicta of books in such fashion as this by observation 

 of facts and by independent reasoning upon them. It 

 is far more scientific thus to use one's own means of 

 knowledge, however limited, than to resign oneself help- 

 lessly into the hands of a teacher, however eminent. 

 And assuredly, as I have said, though limited the means 

 of knowledge presented to all who will use them are 

 ample enough, and increase with the using. It is my 

 present object to point out a few common and easily 

 verified examples. 



In the first place, let us take the case of our 

 common twining plants. As is well known of those 

 plants which avail themselves of strength other than 

 their own to raise them upwards, some, as the Vine, 

 the Pea, and the Clematis, make use of tendrils 

 wherewith to clutch the support of which they take 



