104 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



The effect produced by all three agents, to say nothing 

 of others noiore intimately connected with the plants them- 

 selves, would foe much more far reaching than we should 

 be inclined to suspect at first sight, especially as regards 

 the kind of plant which survived. Yet in spite of all, the 

 land plants won through. 



The sea had sent them a new inheritance, born of the 

 water, conceived in the depths of the water. The birds 

 of the air had brought them. The land had lent them. 

 Surely, if we had an inventory of every kind of plant on 

 the island ; if we could follow back the threads of each 

 one's history of successful struggle and inventiveness, 

 w^hich accounts for its presence on the island to-day, we 

 should have an interesting and absorbing romance. 



