Scrub 
ceives it, and it is promptly assimilated. Even young 
and still more or less soft thorns are promptly devoured. 
Nor are the very roots safe, for a litter of hungry pigs 
will systematically root up and devour the underground 
runners and rootlets of any edible plant. 
So to any one who has botanised in other countries, 
the appearance of the ground in the open or between 
the stems of the maqui or of the cistus seems very 
strange, peculiar, and unnatural. It looks very dry 
and terribly bare, with white stones glaring in the sun, 
and small thorny bushes here and there. But when 
this desert-like character has impressed itself on the 
mind, some vigorous Salvia or Ocimum or Cistus, and 
perhaps a tiny grass-seedling or two, proves that it is 
not in the least like a desert. 
Even the very Charlocks, Polygonums, and other 
weeds of cultivation are carefully saved up to feed those 
goats which, with tinkling bells, climb up the Spanish 
tenements’ stairs to be milked on the purchaser’s 
threshold. 
It is in the Balearic Islands, which have a large popula- 
tion and a limited area, that some of these goat-effects 
are most impressive. There one finds a complex tangle 
of sharp woody thorns, quite 2 inches long, which is 
Asparagus horridus. Also pretty, green, mossy-looking 
cushions, perhaps 4 or 5 feet in circumference, but 
which on examination are found to bristle all over with 
hard and acute spinose points. That is Astragalus 
poterium. A curious instance of specialisation is a 
fragile little vetch, Vicia bifoliata, which insinuates itself 
amongst these Astragalus plants and is protected from 
the goat by their armature.4 
In the Mediterranean generally there is plenty of 
bare ground, and probably not so much competition of 
plant with plant as is usual in Europe. The dangers 
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