HIDE AND SEEK. 95 



large and succulent varieties which now take the 

 prizes at horticultural shows. Natural selection 

 commenced the task, and artificial selection has com- 

 pleted it. 



In the summer time the popping of guns in the 

 orchards tells us the birds are now being kept away. 

 Thrushes, blackbirds, and other fruit-loving kinds are 

 falling victims, or being driven away from the cherries, 

 currants, and strawberries. Few people are aware 

 that if it had not been for them and their ancestors, 

 we should never have had the very fruits from which 

 we now frighten them away. In this way man has 

 " annexed " the long-laboured results of frugivorous 

 birds. Originally the fruits were just large enough for 

 such birds to swallow them separately — now they 

 have been developed by artificial selection to such a 

 size that our fruit -eating birds cannot bolt them 

 whole, but eat away the thick layer of succulent 

 pericarp, leaving the stones attached to the stalks ! 



Had plums, cherries, peaches, and apricots, not 

 been favoured by man, increase of bulk and size 

 would have been a serious matter for such fruits. 

 For if the stones of these fruits had been left 

 hanging to the stalks the seeds could not have 

 been dispersed ; the entire purpose for which the 

 juicy pericarp was originally developed would have 

 been counteracted, and such species of plants would 

 have slowly died out. Man has taken the matter 

 of their care and dispersion under his own manage- 



