102 HIGH LIFE. 





can't fail of fertilisation at the very first visit, which of 

 course enables them to a great extent to dispense with 

 the aid of big or brilliant petals. So that, where the 

 struggle for life is fiercest, and adaptation most perfect, 

 the flora will on the whole be not most, but least, 

 conspicuous in the matter of very handsome flowers. 



Now, the struggle for life is fiercest, and the wealth of 

 nature is greatest, one need hardly say, in tropical 

 climates. There alone do we find every inch of soil 

 ' encumbered by its waste fertility,' as Comus puts it ; 

 weighed down by luxuriant growth of tree, shrub, herb, 

 creeper. There alone do lizards lurk in every hole ; 

 beetles dwell manifold in every cranny ; butterflies flock 

 thick in every grove ; bees, ants, and flies swarm by 

 myriads on every sun-smitten hillside. Accordingly, in 

 the tropics, adaptation reaches its highest point; and 

 tangled richness, not beauty of colour, becomes the 

 dominant note of the equatorial forests. Now and then, 

 to be sure, as you wander through Brazilian or 

 Malayan woods, you may light upon some bright tree 

 clad in scarlet bloom, or some glorious orchid drooping 

 pendant from a bough with long sprays ol beauty : but 

 such sights are infrequent. Green, and green, and ever 

 green again that is the general feeling of the equatorial 

 forest : as different as possible from the rich mosaic of a 

 high alp in early June, or a Scotch hillside deep in 

 golden gorse and purple heather in broad August 

 sunshine. 



In very cold countries, on the other hand, though the 

 conditions are severe, the struggle for existence is not 

 really so hard, because, in one word, there are fewer 



