3i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



never digest the hard, knobby seeds, so conspicuous in the black- 

 berry, the currant, and the grape. Southern fruits, on the con- 

 trary, are mainly eaten by parrots, monkeys, and other large fruit- 

 feeders, for whose attraction the plants specially lay themselves 

 out. Hence the southern types desire to keep off unauthorized 

 small intruders, which would merely pick holes in their pulp 

 without doing any real good to the plant, as wasps do with our 

 northern peaches. For this purpose, natural selection has favored 

 in their case the development of various abstruse devices for keep- 

 ing off the smaller birds and animals. Sometimes, as with the 

 orange, lemon, and citron, the outer rind is bitter and nasty; 

 sometimes, as with the cashew, it is violently pungent, acrid, and 

 irritating ; sometimes, as with the pomegranate, it is merely 

 hard, stiff', and leathery. But, in all instances alike, it is meant to 

 repel by every means in the plant's power the small intruder. 

 Monkeys and parrots, however, the friends of the species, do not 

 mind these slight outer defenses ; they strip them off easily with 

 hand or beak, and reach the sweet pulp within, duly intended by the 

 grateful tree for their edification. On the other hand, the actual 

 seed itself in tropical fruits is always thoroughly well protected 

 against their teeth or bills, either by a very hard stone, as in the 

 olive, date, and mango, or by intense bitterness, as in the orange 

 and lemon. 



It is to this specially defended tropical type of fruits that the 

 true bottle-gourd essentially belongs. Our little English bryony 

 has a mere northern bird-berry, round, and red, and soft, and 

 almost rindless ; it has adapted itself in this matter to the small 

 ways of robins and finches. But the gourd has a hard and forbid- 

 ding rind ; it fastens itself up in a firm covering ; it lays itself out 

 with all its soul for the larger fruit-eaters of tropical forests. 

 Not, indeed, that in its raw ripe state the gourd is by any means 

 so dry and hard as in the arid form which we see in southern 

 wine-shops. The method of preparing gourds for use as bottles 

 is, indeed, a sufficiently lengthy one. You pick your fruit and 

 hang it up to dry, not in the sun, but under the shade of the roof, 

 for a whole year before it is fit for boring. As soon as it has 

 hardened evenly all over, you cut a round hole at the stalk-end 

 (at least in the common double-bulging form employed as a flask 

 by southern shepherds) and rattle out the dry seeds and pulp, 

 which easily come out of themselves through the opening. The 

 remaining husk is hard enough and thick enough to bear carving. 

 I have several gourds in my little collection thus carved in deep 

 relief with Moorish patterns, including one which bears on its 

 face, four times repeated, a text from the Koran. 



Gourds, calabashes, and the shells of cocoanuts, together with 

 human skulls and the horns of cattle, sheep, and antelopes, seem 



