CHAPTER V 



THE WEB OP LIFE 

 (Intricacy op Inter-Eelations) 



'Sbe is all tbings. Sbe rewards berself an& punlsbcs 

 berselt j Is ber own jog anD ber own mlscrg. . . ,' 



' Iber cbil&ren are numberless. XTo none Is sbe altogetber 

 miserig ; but sbe bas ber favourites, on wbom sbe squanders 

 mucb, anD for wbom sbe mahes great sacrifices.' 



— Ooethe's Aphorisms, translated by Huxley. 



The , Balance of Nature — Linkages — The Liviag Earth — Mutual 

 Dependence for the Continuance of Life — Ants and Seeds — 

 Mussels and Minnows — Bees and Mowers — Other Illustrations 

 — Inter-Relations of a Pitcher-plant — Ants and Plants 

 — Epizoic Associations — Shelter Associations — Commensalism — 

 Symbiosis — Parasitism — Domestic Complications — The Cuc- 

 koo's Habit — Animal Societies — The Ant HiU — The Bee Hive 

 — The Termitary — Other Illustrations — Domestication — Guests 

 and Pets — Slave-making — Man and the Web of Life. 



ONE of Darwin's master-ideas has during the last 

 half-century passed into general intellectual cur- 

 rency — the idea of the web of life. Nothing is unimportant, 

 nothing is isolated, nature is a vast system of inter-relations 

 and linkages. Earthworms have made most of the fertile 

 soil of the Earth ; cats have to do with next year's clover- 

 crop ; eighty seeds may germinate from one clodlet on one 

 bird's foot. These are Darwinian instances and we are 



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