WILD LIFE IN CALIFORNIA 



83 



this, purpose and plan of the great Designer, 

 and a fundamental feature of the scheme of 

 life? 



Yet I can understand how some people who 

 have given but little thought to the opera- 

 tion of the laws of Nature or study of natural 

 history would remain unimpressed, without 

 further explanation that carniverous or meat 

 eating animals find the necessary chemicals 

 in proper combination in the flesh of smaller 

 or weaker vegetable feeding animals, which 

 become the food supply of the larger or more 

 powerful forms. Thus man eats beef and 

 mutton which may be the principal part of 

 the food sustaining his existence, while the 

 steer that makes the beef and the sheep 

 that becomes mutton in the meat market, 

 obtained their growth from the grains and 

 grasses of the vegetable world. Whatever the 

 character of nourishing food to man or beast 

 may be, trace back its history and it will be 

 found to have originated from the vegetable 

 world. 



The vegetable kingdom while holding the 

 fate of all animal life, in turn is dependent 

 upon the waters of the earth to maintain 

 its existence. The individual members must 

 have water to aid in the manufacture of food- 

 stuffs for animal life; it is required to dissolve 

 the chemicals in the earth so the little roots 

 of the plants can absorb them. The plants 

 and trees, except those of aquatic growth, 

 find the water in the soil. The water comes 

 from the rainfall, and as every school boy 

 knows, the source of the rain is the ocean 

 and other bodies of water which yield it by 

 evaporation from their surfaces; thence it is 

 conveyed to and distributed over the land 

 through the agency of the ever moving 

 atmosphere. It is also a matter of common 

 knowledge that three-fourths of the surface 

 of the globe is water and the other one-fourth 

 is composed of land, but few people notice 

 the interesting and remarkable feature in 

 this matter of proportion of water to land, 

 which is that the water surfaces contain the 

 proper area, to furnish the supply of water 

 or rainfall necessary to support natural vege- 

 tation on the land area. 



Nature operates this wonderful scheme on 

 an immense scale, but not always with that 

 nicety and regularity in distribution of rain- 

 fall on land to avoid the complaints of farm- 

 ers of "too much" or "too little," as the case 

 may be for a satisfactory growth of their 

 crops. For vegetation in the natural or wild 

 state, however, its operation is amazing in 

 its grandeur, perfection and harmony. It 

 does not require much thought to realize 

 that through any material reduction in the 

 proportion of water to land, if such a thing 

 were possible, the entire face of nature on 

 this earth would be changed. Our wooded 

 nooks and vales shorn of their foliage would 

 no longer be places of beauty and pleasing re- 

 treat. Our fertile fields would cease, to be 

 productive and the grassy plains and hill- 

 sides would be made bare. In short our 

 lands would become as a desert wherein 

 would stalk famine and death for all organic 

 life. 



There is little profit in speculating upon 

 the improbable, if not impossible, things 

 relating to life, beyond the lesson we may 

 draw in acquainting ourselves with the 

 existence and working of the laws of nature 

 and the part they bear to the Almighty's 

 great scheme of the universe. 



From what we have learned from the 

 study of life and the origin of species it is 

 possible that in the beginning primary life 

 was exceedingly small and that the first forms 

 were indistinguishable as being either vege- 

 table or animal. We have such forms still 

 with us bearing some animal characteristics 

 at the same time exhibiting as strong vege- 

 table features, and where to place them in 

 classification has been something of a puzzle 

 to scientists. Accepting the theory of evolu- 

 tion as sound doctrine it is easy to under- 

 stand how this primary life may have given 

 a start to what we now style the animal and 

 vegetable kingdoms. In the millions upon 

 millions of years that have followed since 

 the division and the beginning of the two 

 kingdoms animal life from the simplest form 

 has developed into the complex beings we 

 now see; and likewise plant life from minute 

 and insignificant forms has developed the 

 trees, vines, shrubs, plants and grasses that 

 have made the earth habitable, contributing 

 to the shelter of man and beast as well as 

 yielding them pleasure, food and other com- 

 forts. 



Though the dependence of animal life 

 upon the vegetable kingdom for its exist- 

 ence must have been recognized by man since 

 the dawn of intelligence and civilization, it 

 is only since the discovery and invention of 

 the microscope in a comparative recent age, 

 that man, by the use of this wonderful instru- 

 ment has been able to unravel the secrets 

 of the organism of plant life and the func- 

 tion of the leaf with its miraculous mechan- 

 ism operating therewith. 



Ordinary leaves of vegetable life are of 

 many shapes and sizes; each species of plant 

 including trees, shrubs, etc., having a form 

 peculiar to itself. The long slender pine 

 needle and the broad leaf of a Brazilian 

 lily, six feet and more in diameter, with 

 upturned edges, are representatives of ex- 

 treme examples. In defining a leaf, the stalk 

 or petiole by which it is attached to the stem 

 or branch of the plant to which it belongs is 

 known as part of the leaf, although the 

 leaves of some species of plant life are with- 

 out stalks or petioles. Such are said to be 

 sessile, the base of the leaf being directly 

 attached to the stem without any extension 

 from the blade. Besides the ordinary leaves, 

 strictly speaking, there are others, which 

 botanists take note of, that serve different 

 purposes, where they serve any. These are 

 the bud-scales, flower petals, scales of bulbs 

 and the rudimentary forms sometimes found 

 on tubers. However, it is the common leaf, 

 the functions of which fill so important a 

 part in the scheme of life. 



An exceedingly interesting matter connected 

 with occurrence of leaves is the peculiar sys- 

 tematic and mathematical order and pre- 



