The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-01-17

air gourmand that it is. The vetch has q
curious and interesting provision against
pillaging insects, ants and other creep
ing free hooters, who would steal its sweets
without iertilizing its flowers. Like all
of the peablossoms, it is fertiiized by bees
and small-winged beetles, but its low
lying stalks and the position of its bios
SONS enable the ants to climb to its store
houses and rifle it's honey cells. So what
the plant did in the first place to secure
fertilization by honey-sucking insects it
now does to protect itself from unservice-
able robbers. 1t secretes drop of honey
at the base of each pair of the little barb
like appendages growing at the base of
each leaf. The ant, crawling along the
STEM guided by the sense of smell, for
ants cannot see, comes upon this sop
thrown out to stay its progress, stops to
sip, is turned back from further ascent by
the barb-like leaf appendages, and never
reaches the honey-hlled blossom that in
vites the bees.
1t is dim and chill here among the red
woods, for the sun never penetrates 10
this tangle. The water of the bright little
stream filings itself joyfully down the
rocks as though eager for its plunge, miles
below. into the smiling bay. We talk of
Mother Earth" but we might, with per-
haps even more truth, speak of mother
water, for all evidences are in favor of
the belief that the first life appeared, not
upon the earth at ALL but born and nur-
tured upon the broad bosom of mother
sea, even before the land had pushed its
way upward from oceans depths. The
green scum on the surface of still pools,
the slimemods covering stagnant bot
toms, furnish US some indication of what
this primordial vegetation was like; but
by what long processes of evolution have
come from that common ancestor the
miniature forests of the MOSES covering
yonder rocks, the ferns mantling the
banks, this wild begonia here at my feet,
the osiers yOnder in the stream, the tow
ering redwoods themselves! Only here
and there are we able to read line, par
agraph, never a complete page of the
wonderful story. Above my head on
branch of tall redwood is a last years
birds nest, a bluejay's home from its
structure. moment or two ago a rabbit
stole up from the waters edge, and as l
watched it skittering away to cover l heard
the whistle of thrush far away in the
brush. A gray and white wood rat just
sprang from branch close at my hand
and ran to tree not dozen feet away.
1 think the bright specks 1 see yonder.
separated by dash of dirty white, are his
watching eyes. The canyon is full of life,
with the vivid tender springtime green for
its background, the talking water har-
monious second to the blending music OF
its myIiad sounds. A very wise man told
me once that all life came from proto-
plasm and that if we knew the conditions
we could make the protoplasm.
Not bad idea that, but 1 fancy that if
some day we should stumble upon the
conditions, make the protoplasm, exploit
it in the newspapers, press the button and
set it all a-going, there would soon come
time when the wonder would again be
beyond our ken. Life itself is a greater
mystery than its causation.