272 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



the green crown from which they fly. The pigeon's plumage 

 is as pure and delicate in May, but it does not catch the eye 

 with its beauty in the same way when it flies out from the 

 tender luxuriance of spring verdure. Deeply satisfying as is 

 the colour of a bushy crown of ivy, there is more individual 

 beauty in the leaves on the climbing stems. Like the holly 

 the ivy changes the shape of its leaves as the plant grows 

 mature ; just as the holly loses most of its prickles, keeping 

 only a sharp terminal point, the many-pointed leaves of the 

 climbing ivy-spray change to a rounder outline as the end of 

 the journey is reached, and the plant spreads into a bush. 

 The leaves on a climbing or creeping stem are of a darker 

 and more beautifully mottled green ; it is shot with a purplish 

 bloom, and the veins are traced in buff and creamy white. 

 This change in the ivy leaves makes us wonder whether the 

 familiar protective explanation of the prickles of the holly 

 is valid after all. Prickles so it is claimed have been 

 acquired by the holly-tree so as to guard it in lowly youth 

 from being destroyed by grazing animals. When the tree 

 grows out of the reach of all beasts found in its haunts, it 

 ceases to need its armour, and the leaves lose every prickle 

 but one. According to the same theory, we ought either to 

 regard the jagged outline of the leaves of the young ivy as a 

 protective armament in the making, or possibly in decay, or 

 else we must regard the resemblance as purely fortuitous and 

 unmeaning. But the holly and ivy are so alike in this 

 respect that it is difficult to believe that they are not examples 

 of the same principle. And if we can find no protective 

 significance in the ivy's harmless points, there is a strong 

 suggestion that protection may have less to do than we 

 thought with the development of the sterner prickles of the 

 holly. 



Ivy clings to the earth, trunk or wall, on which it creeps 



