44 FLASHLIGHTS ON NATURE 



bustion. If a herb that flowers in the open were 

 to make experiments in warming itself in the same 

 manner, its attempt would necessarily fail, because 

 as fast as it heated the air the wind would blow 

 the heated portion away, and the plant would 

 therefore derive no benefit from its expenditure of 

 fuel. But we all know how Esquimaux can live 

 in a snow hut, keeping it warm inside by their 

 own breath and the heat of their bodies. It is 

 just the same in principle with the soldanella's ice- 

 cave. The little dome or cavern gets warmed 

 within by the respiration of the flower-bud ; and 

 the heat thus produced is retained within the walls 

 of the cavity. It is almost as though a mouse or 

 other small animal were to try to bore a path for 

 itself through an ice-barrier, not by gnawing the 

 ice, but by breathing upon it slowly till it melted. 

 See, then, how absolutely the soldanella behaves 

 like a man who is making a conservatory. It lays 

 by fuel for the stove in its leaves to keep its flower- 

 buds warm and to force them in spring, at a time 

 when they could not blossom without the artificial 

 heat thus supplied them. It keeps in this heat 

 within a transparent covering, the doors of which 

 are never opened. As for light, that reaches it 

 through the crystal summit. But it employs the 

 heat also to bore its way out ; and, as its ultimate 

 object is to get its young seeds fertilised, it finally 

 pushes its flowers out into the open air, where they 

 may receive the attentions of the fertilising in- 

 sects just as the gardener does, without knowing 

 why, when he wishes seed set. The pendent bell- 



