lisation 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 of 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 competitors. The field is less occupied; life
is less rich, less varied, less self-strangling. And therefore
specialisation hasn't gone nearly so far in cold latitudes or
altitudes. Lower and simpler types everywhere occupy the soil; mosses,
matted flowers, small beetles, dwarf butterflies. Nature is less
luxuriant, yet in some ways more beautiful. As we rise on the mountains
the forest trees disappear, and with them the forest beasts, from bears
to squirrels; a low, wind-swept vegetation succeeds, very poor in
species, and stunted in growth, but making a floor of rich flowers
almost unknown elsewhere. The humble butterflies and beetles of the
chillier elevation produce in the result more beautiful bloom than the
highly developed honey-seekers of the richer and warmer lowlands.
Luxuriance is atoned for by a Turkey carpet