WILD HONEYSUCKLE 55 



I do not know what ethical standard may prevail 

 among vegetation, but it looks like a mean action on 

 the part of the Chestnut : to decoy the enemy away 

 from himself, and to deliver his near neighbour into 

 the same enemy's hands. Or is it an example of heroic 

 self-sacrifice on the part of the Oak ? Perhaps the Oak 

 said, " Neighbour, throw out a little branch and send 

 me the enemy. I am doomed already ; a little more 

 can only bring the end somewhat sooner. You have 

 made one brave fight already, and though scarred for 

 life, will live and do well. When I die and fall, as I 

 must within a very few years, our enemy, now held up 

 by me to the sunlight and gaily flowering, will lie in a 

 mangled heap on the floor of the wood, where, over- 

 shadowed by your spreading branches, he will never 

 bloom again, but must remain content with a lowlier 

 way of life." The little Oak seems to be vainly 

 striving for its life ; it was gripped while still young, 

 and the greater part of it is killed already — slowly 

 but surely throttled by the deadly coils ; indeed it 

 is now no longer an Oak tree but a Honeysuckle 

 tree. 



Not far off is another young Oak, but this has a 

 thicker trunk, quite seven inches through, and strong 

 enough to burst any ropes of Honeysuckle that may be 

 round it, while some of rather less diameter, also strong 

 enough to get free at last, show by diagonal swollen 

 ridges, with a hollow channel in the middle, the place 

 where the serpent-like coil encircled them for perhaps a 



