favorable. Hence the prodigality of
Nature in seeds, scattering a thousand for one plant or tree. She is
like a hunter shooting at random into every tree or bush, hoping to
bring down his game, which he does if his ammunition holds out long
enough; or like the British soldier in the Boer War, firing vaguely at
an enemy that he does not see. But Nature's ammunition always holds
out, and she hits her mark in the end. Her ammunition on our planet is
the heat of the sun. When this fails, she will no longer hit the mark
or try to hit it.

Let there be a plum tree anywhere with the disease called the
"black-knot" upon it, and presently every plum tree in its
neighborhood will have black knots. Do you think the germs from the
first knot knew where to find the other plum trees? No; the wind
carried them in every direction, where the plum trees were not as well
as where they were. It was a blind search and a chance hit. So with
all seeds and germs. Nature covers all the space, and is bound to hit
the mark sooner or later. The sun spills his light indiscriminately
into space; a small fraction of his rays hit the earth, and we are
warmed. Yet to all intents and purposes it is as if he shone for us
alone.

II

BIRD-SONGS

I suspect it requires a special gift of grace to enable one to hear
the bird-songs; some new power must be added to the ear, or some
obstruction removed. There are not only scales upon our eyes so that
we do not see, there are scales upon our ears so that we do not hear.
A city woman who had spent much of her time in the country once asked
a well-known ornithologist to take her where she could hear the
bluebird. "What, never heard the bluebird!" said he. "I have not,"
said the woman. "Then you will never hear it," said the bird-lover;
never hear it with that inward ear that gives beauty and meaning to
the note. He could probably have taken her in a few minutes where she
could have heard the call or warble of the bluebird; but it would have
fallen upon unresponsive ears--upon ears that were not sensitized by
love for the birds or associations with them. Bird-songs are not
music, properly speaking, but only suggestions of music. A great many
people whose attention would be quickly arrested by the same volume of
sound made by a musical instrument or by artificial means never hear
them at all. The sound of a boy's penny whistle there in the