26 Use of Spines in Cactuses. 
ornithologists, and specimen hunters, but because he has a taste 
educated to the fruits he can only find in our vicinity. He is 
spoiled for wild life. Indeed, the robin red-breast is purely a pro- 
duct of civilisation, appearing only with man. And the cat-bird 
is being spoiled as fast as possible, for anything short of the finest 
cultivated raspberries and green peas. And we have several more 
birds on the same road. ‘They can eat the old bitter berries when 
driven by hunger, but they have learned to know good fruits when 
they find them. The same is true, unfortunately, of some pesti- 
ferous insects. 
So, you see, our apples and pears are members of a very curious 
family, and have a very interesting history, and a great future ahead 
of them. The two families that move along together, the very 
highest representatives of the culture of the vegetable kingdom 
and of the animal kingdom, are the rose family and the human 
family. Indeed, neither one could have become quite what it is 
but for the other. And if to-day the rose family should be obli- 
terated, I think it would go very hard with us to keep up our 
civilisation. 
Use of Spines in Cactuses. 
UR brethren across the water, assuming that thorns 
are simply for protection in a military sense, are 
exercising themselves in their serials over the spiny 
leaves of the holly. When young and vigorous—ze., 
in early life—the teeth are very spiny ; when the tree is - 
aged, and the branches then a distance above the surface of the 
ground, losing the vigour, the spines are weak or absent. Sir John 
Lubbock and others, following the poet Southey, see in this a 
beautiful adaptation for protective purposes. When within the 
reach of animals, spines are borne ; when high up where animals 
cannot reach, spines are unnecessary. Numbers of species of 
plants have mucronate points to the leafy serrature, which are 
wanted in maturer years. It is at anyrate difficult to imagine why 
a sharp point should be made especially for protection, and points 
less sharp for no protective use at all. 
I have often reflected on a fact referred to by Dr. Newberry, 
that our thorniest plants are in much greater proportion in places 
where animal life is scarce, and the immense police force sustained 
by the great vegetable community absolutely thrown away. —_Cac- 
tuses and other thorny things I have seen covered with thorns and 
spines on deserts where the hot air seemed to be bounding up and 
