82 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



Thus the plant actually buries its own seeds out of the 

 way of all depredators ; and there they ripen and lie 

 securely till next spring's rain quickens them afresh. In 

 this way alone could the subterranean clover for that 

 is its name survive with safety in its shallow closely 

 cropped pasture grounds. Yet how wonderful the 

 action of natural selection here makes the plant simul- 

 ate intelligence and volition. More than half the 

 flowers have been altered into barren fibres to act as 

 picks or augers in the earth ; and the stem has acquired 

 the habit of turning up, and then turning down : all for 

 the sake of burying the three remaining fertile blossoms 

 in the soil, and securing the safety of their few seeds. 

 Indeed, it is often easiest to formulate the whole series 

 of changes to oneself in such terms as one would natur- 

 ally apply to a conscious and self-governing living 

 creature ; and it is this that adds such a charm to the 

 new conception of nature which has been opened before 

 the naturalists of the present generation by the evolution 

 theory. We need no longer think of the plants as things 

 that were made once for all : we may think of them as 

 things that grew and improved and almost invented ; 

 and that idea immensely deepens the interest with which 

 we can watch all their innocent ways and curious half- 

 reasoning ingenious devices. 



