SEED-MASS ETC. OF HELLEBORUS FŒTIDUS. 445 
distance away from the parent plant, although it still remains to be proved 
by observation that these seeds get on to the body in the open, instead of 
being placed there by the experimenter indoors. 
Worms.—Possibly these help in burying stray seeds or small bits broken 
off the mass. 
Section II. BIRDS. 
My next object was, if possible, to account for the disappearance of the 
three whole masses. I searched in vain for them, though it is as likely as 
not that they were somewhere in the garden. 
There is no ants'-nest in the border where my Hellebores grow, nor do 
[ remember ever having seen an ant or a mammal thereabout, with the 
exception of cats and dogs, although I have kept a look-out for rats and 
mice : so it is difficult to avoid thinking that their disappearance is perhaps 
to be attributed to birds. 
When the masses are fresh, the broad white strip stands out boldly against 
the black margin by which it is surreunded, and they frequently—I_ think I 
may say generally—fall in such a manner that the elaiosome is plainly visible 
from above, a point that should be noted carefully when one is dealing either 
with birds or ants. When the masses are stale they are not so conspicuous, 
for the strip turns at first a light and afterwards a darker dirty brown. 
І have frequently noticed robins about the plants in the early morning and 
suspected that they may have been after the masses, but Т have never been 
able to justify that suspicion. 
In addition to this bird we have thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, hedge- 
sparrows, starlings, wrens, and some others as occasional visitors, such as 
bullfinehes, chaffinches, whitethroats, and very rarely а nuthateh. The 
thrushes are rather fond of this border, and I have disturbed them at various 
times of the ‘day quite close to the Hellebores. In the early hours of 
July 5th one of them was on the bed in which they grow, not more than half 
a yard off, and I watched it to see if it would take one of the masses lying on 
the ground, but it went right over them, extracted a snail from the ivy on 
the wall, and proceeded to smash it with the usual vigour on the tiled path 
close by. Subsequently between the 6th and the 14th I placed perfectly 
fresh seed-masses in twos and threes in various parts of the garden ; I laid 
them on the soil with the strip uppermost, and they were very conspicuous 
against the brown earth, but not one of them was removed. 
Altogether I put down four lots of 3 each and three lots of 2 each—that is, 
18 masses in seven different places. My plan was to place them in position 
about midnight, so as to catch the early bird, but on the first occasion I 
eaught the late snail instead, for the first lot of three was badly mutilated by 
the next morning. I thought of protecting them with a ring of powder, 
which I know from experience neither snails nor slugs can cross, but I feared 
