THE PERSONALITY OF TREES 311 



for nutritious salts with the sensitive tips of its 

 innumerable rootlets. 



Darwin has taught us, and truly, that a relent- 

 less struggle for existence is ever going on around 

 us, and although this is most evident to our eyes 

 in a terrible death battle between two great beasts 

 of prey, yet it is no less real and intense in the 

 case of the bird pouring forth a beautiful song, or 

 the delicate violet shedding abroad its perfume. 

 To realise the host of enemies ever shadowing the 

 feathered songster and its kind, we have only to 

 remember that though four young birds may be 

 hatched in each of fifty nests, yet of the two hun- 

 dred nestlings an average often of but one lives 

 to grow to maturity, — ^to migrate and to return to 

 the region of its birth. 



And the violet, living, apparently, such a quiet 

 life of humble sweetness? Fortunate indeed is it 

 if its tiny treasure of seeds is fertilized, and then 

 the chances are a thousand to one that they will 

 grow and ripen only to fall by the wayside, or on 

 barren ground, or among the tares. 



At first thought, a tree seems far removed from 

 all such struggles. How solemn and grand its 

 trunk stands, column-like against the sky! How 

 puny and weak we seem beside it! Its sturdy 

 roots, sound wood, and pliant branches all spell 

 power. Nevertheless, the old, old struggle is as 

 fierce, as unending, here as everywhere. A mon- 



