86 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[July 2 7l i888. 



coat, as in the chestnut, or a nauseous covering, as in the 

 walnut ; and it is interesting to note that it is the same 

 part that becomes filled with bitter essence in the walnut 

 which in the cherry or plum becomes sweet and eatable. 

 Again, these fruits, instead of being highly coloured to 

 attract the notice of animals, are invariably green while 

 on the tree, and brown, like the soil, when they fall to 

 the ground, so as to escape the notice of the animals. 

 The extent of the protection depends on the animals to 

 whose attacks the nuts are exposed. The European 

 walnut has only a few woodland animals to guard 

 against, while the American butter-nut has to withstand 

 the teeth of the forest rodents. 



Take, for example, the cocoa-nut. This contains a large 

 store of food-stuff intended for the embryo plant. This 

 accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut, but not for the 

 fibres on the outside ! Let us consider the reason for 

 the presence of these fibres. The cocoa-nut grows at a 

 considerable height, and so has to fall some way to the 

 ground when ripe ; also it is subject to aggravated 

 assaults from our revered ancestor, the prehensile ape. 

 This accounts for the presence of the fibrous coat of the 

 nut. It is remarkable to note that the fibrous coat of the 

 cocoa-nut corresponds to the succulent part of the cherry 

 and the bitter coat of the walnut. 



Finally, Darwin has shown that there is considerable 

 evidence for believing that the peach is derived from the 

 almond by artificial selection. This is interesting, as it 

 shows the actual conversion of a deterrent fruit, the al- 

 mond, into an attractive fruit, the peach. 



Lastly, let us consider the origin of fruits. The doc- 

 trine of natural selection tells us that in uncultivated 

 plants — z.e.,?plants in a state of nature — no part can be 

 present that is not of direct use to the plant ; and, in the 

 case of fruits, no part can be present that is not directly 

 concerned in the preservation and dispersal of its seeds. 

 Hence it is absurd to suppose that fruits were created 

 for man's special benefit, for if man was the chief eater 

 of fruits, the latter would soon disappear from the face 

 of the earth, from insufficient dispersal of their seeds. 



The origin of fruits is due to natural selection, and 

 furnishes us with some of the best examples of this law ; 

 for, in the case of plants, we at once get rid of the idea of 

 voluntary effort, so difficult to escape in the case of ani- 

 mals ; for we are apt to imagine an animal consciously 

 striving to better itself. Take, for instance, the giraffe ; 

 we are apt to think of the animal as consciously endea- 

 vouring to increase the length of its neck in order to 

 reach more food ; whereas it is really those which have 

 accidentally longer necks which survive. In the case of 

 plants this is avoided, as we should never imagine a fruit 

 striving to make itself succulent in order to attract birds. 



Let us first consider the origin of attractive fruits. All 

 fruits were not originally alike ; some happened to be 

 sweeter than others, owing to an accidental deposit of 

 sugary matter in their tissues. These were at once eaten 

 by birds, and the more sour ones rejected ; the ones 

 eaten consequently survived, and the sour ones went to 

 the wall. The seeds of the ones eaten gave rise to 

 others, which reproduced the characteristics of their 

 parents ; and the most attractive of these were eaten, and 

 the others rejected, and so on, generation after generation, 

 the fruits becoming more and more succulent, because 

 the most succulent ones were eaten and survived. 

 This process may be carried still further by artificial 

 selection, so that the original object of the fruit is lost, 

 and fruits can be produced which have no seeds. In 



this way, finer fruits are produced, as the nutriment 

 originally intended for the seed now goes to the fruit. 



We should naturally expect that attractive fruits did not 

 appear on the earth till there were animals which would 

 eat them ; both must have developed simultaneously and 

 in mutual dependence on each other. So we find no 

 traces of the succulent fruits, even in so late a geological 

 formation as that of the lias or cretaceous cliffs, for the 

 simple reason that there were no animals to eat them ; 

 the birds of that period being carnivorous, while the 

 mammals were mostly kangaroos or marsupial wolves. 

 It is only in the modern tertiary period that we find the 

 earliest traces of the rose-family, the greatest fruit bear- 

 ing tribe of our modern world. 



We now come to the origin of deterrent fruits. The 

 origin of these is exactly the reverse of the origin of 

 attractive fruits. The seeds of these, stored with food 

 for the young plant, were exposed to the attacks of birds, 

 monkeys, and other animals, and were thus destroyed. 

 But as no two fruits are exactly alike, some happened to 

 have a harder or more bitter shell, and these alone sur- 

 vived. The hungrier their foes, the more need was 

 there for protection, and so the bitterness and hardness 

 went on increasing generation after generation, and the 

 nut which best survives on the average is that which is 

 the least conspicuous in colour, has a rind of the most 

 bitter taste, and is enclosed in the hardest shell. 



Thus, as Grant Allen says, " Nature is a continuous 

 game of cross purposes. Animals perpetually outwit 

 plants, and plants in return once more outwit animals ; 

 or those animals alone survive which manage to get a 

 living in spite of the protections adopted by plants, and 

 those plants alone survive whose peculiarities happen 

 successfully to defy the attacks of animals." 



Whence Comes Man; from '■'Nature" or from " God"? 

 By Arthur John Bell. London : W. Isbister, 

 Limited, 1888. 



Mr. Bell says in his introduction that he is "only an 

 ignorant person," not possessing " any deep knowledge 

 of theology, philosophy, or science," and pretending to 

 " no more than an average amount of common sense." 

 But we may safely supplement his remarks by adding 

 that he has more than the average amount of courage — 

 to give its noblest name to the quality he manifests — 

 for he has in all his ignorance ventured far into the 

 deepest problems of theology, philosophy, and science, 

 and traversed the conclusions of men who surpass him 

 in knowledge as much as he surpasses them in temerity. 



We are sorry that Mr. Bell did not devote himself 

 more earnestly to the serious effort needed for rightly 

 understanding the meaning of the great men he takes 

 to task; he would assuredly have met with his reward, 

 for he seems to be possessed of that degree of in- 

 telligence which renders the achievement possible. As 

 it is, he has in many instances misunderstood their 

 meaning, just because " common sense " will no more 

 enable a man to grapple with philosophical or scien- 

 tific difficulties than it will enable him to navigate 

 a ship or conduct a campaign. For example, he 

 quotes Spencer as follows : " Self-existence, therefore, 

 necessarily means existence without a beginning ; and 

 to form a conception of self-existence is to form a con- 

 ception of existence without a beginning. Now, by no 



