86 THE HUMAN SIDE OF PLANTS 
and when he wakes he pushes his way through the 
door and sails out into the world, a tiny grey moth. 
There is one form of athletics in which the gym- 
nast or “outdoor man” of to-day does not indulge 
to a great extent, although for his general develop- 
ment the pursuit of this kind of exercise with more 
avidity would be beneficial. This is climbing. If 
we are to accept the theories of Darwin, we must 
believe that climbing was more than a popular 
sport for our ancestors; and certainly the instinc- 
tive inclination of children toward this effort would 
seem to point to some inherited suggestion or lean- 
ing in the direction of this form of exercise. 
In plant life we find instances of climbers so 
numerous as to indicate the most popular of all the 
forms of athletics pursued by the plants. How- 
ever, there are radical differences in the methods 
of climbing followed by different plants. The 
Virginia creeper, for instance, forms little sticky 
feet at the ends of its tendrils; and in climbing, all 
the tendrils, sensitive to the light and darkness, seek 
out the dark nooks and crevices in preference to 
the light places, and, clinging there, enable the 
plant to mount to the top of the support. The 
bryony, on the contrary, catches at anything that 
will afford a means of tenability, preferring the 
light to the darkness, and therefore tending toward 
