A JUNGLE CLEARING 41 
able to defend itself or protect its tissues; and if 
I did not now destroy it, which I should assuredly 
not do, this weed would justify its place as a 
worthy link in the chain of numberless genera- 
tions, past and to come. 
More complex, clever, subtle methods of at- 
tack transcended those of the mere devourer of 
leaf-tissue, as radically as an inventor of most in- 
tricate instruments differs from the plodding 
tiller of the soil. In the center of one leaf, less 
disfigured than some of its fellows, I perceived 
four tiny ivory spheres, a dozen of which might 
rest comfortably within the length of an inch. 
To my eye they looked quite smooth, although a 
steady oblique gaze revealed hints of concentric 
lines. Before the times of Leeuwenhoek I should 
perhaps have been unable to see more than this, 
although, as a matter of fact, in those happy-go- 
lucky days my ancestors would doubtless have 
trounced me soundly for wasting my time on such 
useless and ungodly things as butterfly eggs. I 
thought of the coming night when I should sit 
and strain with all my might, striving, without 
the use of my powerful stereos, to separate from 
translucent mist of gases the denser nucleus of 
the mighty cosmos in Andromeda. And I alter- 
