VIOLETS AND STORKSBILLS 59 
which are in turn pinched out, and fly off with a little 
snap to a distance of many feet. It is an interesting 
experience to watch these tricks of Nature—much 
more interesting than merely to read about them. If 
plants of Vetch, Gorse, Dog Violet, Storksbill, Wood 
Sorrel, Touch-me-not (to name a few), bearing unripe 
fruit, be brought home and placed in water in a sitting- 
room, the click of the bursting fruits will be distinctly 
audible, and by spreading a white sheet the efficiency 
of the devices may be tested. 
Fic. 10,—FRvIT oF VioLa. #?. 
a, Mature capsule ; 0, capsule open ready to discharge seeds ; 
c, capsule after seeds are discharged. 
A very interesting case, in which the seed is actually 
buried in the soil by movements of its appendages 
(portions of the parent plant which remain attached 
to it), may be watched in the case of the Storksbills 
(Erodium), several species of which are British plants 
of frequent occurrence. Here the young fruit much 
resembles that of its allies the Cranesbills. The long 
rod-like axis at the lower end of which the seed is en- 
closed contracts unequally in drying, so that the upper 
half assumes a position at right angles to that of the 
