96 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



ment. Fruits have learned, so to speak, that men 

 are more profitable to them than birds, and that 

 they have now a much better chance of survival and 

 dispersal by human than by ornithological agency ; 

 and so they have eagerly responded to his horti- 

 cultural labours, and grown as large and sweet and 

 palatable to his taste as possible. Still, one cannot 

 help thinking how badly their first love, the birds, 

 fares at the hands of their second love, man ! 



But enormous numbers of fruits still retain the 

 average size which originally plums, cherries, etc., 

 possessed. This is indicated by the size of the wild 

 bird cherry, from which at least one group of the 

 cultivated kind has been horticulturally developed. 

 The common sloe of our hedgerows is of about the 

 same bulk — that of a pea ; although some of our 

 largest plums have been cultivated from a southern 

 natural variety of the sloe. This average-size of fruit 

 is still maintained by numerous wild species, as those 

 of the Haw, Mountain Ash, Service-tree, Yew, Honey- 

 suckle, Bryony, Mistletoe, Bitter-sweet, etc. The 

 fruits of the Cranberry, Crowberry, Bearberry, etc., are 

 rather smaller ; whilst those of the Raspberry, Black- 

 berry, Dewberry, and Cloudberry are in reality cluster's 

 of smaller fruits whose individual structure is iden- 

 tical with that of a plum or cherry. So that the 

 birds can pick off any one of these compound fruits 

 at will, and swallow as many of the little drupels 

 as they like. 



