HIDE AND SEEK. 105 



advertise that " no mammals need apply." Usually, 

 plants have coloured pericarps only, but a few have 

 this part uncoloured, and their seeds of the most 

 vivid hues instead. Among the latter are those 

 which the country people called the "Roast -beef" 

 plant {Iris fcetidissimd). In its case the hard seeds, 

 when swallowed by birds, are not digested, and 

 perhaps the agency only of very young and inex- 

 perienced birds is employed in this operation, useful 

 to the plant, but hardly paying the birds for their 

 trouble. Indeed, compared with the honest methods 

 adopted by the Plum, Cherry, etc., of rewarding the 

 bird -carriers of their seeds with a good meal, the 

 Irises get theirs dispersed " under false pretences," 

 for the young birds pick up their scarlet seeds, 

 misled by the instinct of their race, which teaches 

 them that attractive fruits are good to eat, and 

 then find out they have been duped into partak- 

 ing of what to them are equivalent to the "apples 

 of Sodom!" 



The Spindle-tree {Eiionymus eiiropcsus), abundant 

 in the hedgerows of eastern and southern England, 

 has advanced so far along the path of fruit- differen- 

 tiation that both its arillus and enclosed seeds are 

 attractively coloured. The former is of a bright 

 crimson, and the latter of quite as vivid a scarlet. 

 Moreover, the carpels open in the autumn time, 

 when the leaves have nearly all fallen, and the fruit 

 is therefore better exposed. The four scarlet seeds 



