CHAPTER V 



THE WEB OF LIFE 



(INTRICACY OF INTER-KELATIONS) 



'Sbe is all things. Sbe rewards berselt ano punfsbes 

 berselt ? Is ber own jog ano ber own misery. . . / 



4 1ber cbtlorcn are numberless. Go none is sbe altogether 

 miserly ; but sbe bas ber favourites, on wbom sbe squanders 

 mucb, ano tor wbom sbe makes great sacrifices/ 



Qtethe's Aphorisms, translated by Huxley. 



The Balance of Nature Linkages The Laving Earth Mutual 

 Dependence for the Continuance of Life Ants and Seeds 

 Mussels and Minnows Bees and Flowers Other Illustrations 

 Inter-Relations of a Pitcher-plant Ants and Plants 

 Epizoic Associations Shelter Associations Commensalism 

 Symbiosis Parasitism Domestic Complications The Cuc- 

 koo's Habit Animal Societies The Ant Hill The Bee Hive 

 The Termitary Other Illustrations Domestication Guests 

 and Pets Slave-making Man and the Web of Life. 



ONE of Darwin's master-ideas has during the last 

 half-century passed into general intellectual cur- 

 rency the idea of the web of life. Nothing is unimportant, 

 nothing is isolated, nature is a vast system of inter-relations 

 and linkages. Earthworms have made most of the fertile 

 soil of the Earth ; cats have to do with next year's clover- 

 crop ; eighty seeds may germinate from one clodlet on one 

 bird's foot. These are Darwinian instances and we are 



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