THE ORIGIN OF FRUITS. 605 



means of defense against the depredators ; sometimes they buy them- 

 selves off by sacrificing a portion of their wealth to secure the safety of 

 the remainder. Those seeds which adopt the former plan we call nuts, 

 while to those which depend upon the latter means of security we give 

 the name of fruits. 



A nut is a hard-coated seed, which deliberately lays itself out to 

 escape the notice and baffle the efforts of monkeys and other frugivor- 

 ous animals. Instead of bidding for attention by its bright hues, like 

 the flower and fruit, the nut is purposely clad in a quiet coat of uniform 

 green, indistinguishable from the surrounding leaves, during its earlier 

 existence ; while afterward it assumes a dull-brown color as it lies upon 

 the dusky soil beneath. Nuts are rich in oils and other useful food-stuffs ; 

 but to eat these is destructive to the life of the embryo ; and therefore 

 the nut commonly surrounds itself with a hard and stony shell, which 

 defies the stoutest teeth to pierce its thickened walls. Outside this 

 solid coating it often spreads a softer covering with a nauseous, bitter 

 taste, so familiar to us all in the walnut, which at once warns off the 

 enemy from attacking the unsavory morsel. Not content with all these 

 protective devices, of color, taste, and hardness, the nut in many cases 

 contains poisonous juices, and is thickly clad in hooked and pointed 

 mail, which wounds the hands or lips of the would-be robber. In brief, 

 a nut is a seed which has survived in the struggle for life by means of 

 multiplied protections against the attacks of enemies. We cannot have 

 a better instance of these precautions than the common cocoanut palm. 

 Its seed hangs at a great height from the ground, on a tall and slender 

 stem, unprovided with branches which might aid the climber, and al- 

 most inaccessible to any animal except the persevering monkey. Its 

 shell is very thick and hard, so extremely impermeable that a small pas- 

 sage has to be left by which the germinating shoot may push its way 

 out of the stronghold where it is born. Outside this shell, again, lies a 

 thick matting of hairy fibres, whose elasticity breaks its fall from the 

 giddy height at which it hangs. Yet, in spite of all these cunning precau- 

 tions, even the cocoanut is not quite safe from the depredations of 

 monkeys, or, stranger still, of tree-climbing crabs. The common Brazil- 

 nuts of our fruiterers' shops are almost equally interesting, their queer, 

 shapeless forms being closely packed together, as they hang from their 

 native boughs, in a hard outer shell, not unlike that of the cocoanut. 

 It must be very annoying to the unsuspecting monkey, who has suc- 

 ceeded after violent efforts in breaking the external coat, to find that 

 he must still deal with a mass of hard, angular, and uncanny nuts, which 

 sadly cut his tender gums and threaten the stability of his precious 

 teeth those invaluable tools which serve him well in the place of 

 knives, hammers, scissors, and all other human implements. 



A fruit, on the other hand, lays itself open in every way to attract 

 the attention of animals, and so to be dispersed by their aid, often amid 

 the nourishing refuse of their meals. It is true that, with the fruit as 



