72 
Here you have a seed which is shaped and 
marked like a beetle (Fig. 82). 
The next picture (Fig. 83) shows you a seed 
from the castor-oil plant. You can see that it 
might easily be mistaken for some insect. 
Think how disappointed the bird must be, 
after having greedily snapped up and carried off one iy 
of these little objects, to discover that for all his pains 
he has secured nothing but a dry, tough pod or seed. 
But if the mother plant really does any thinking at 
all, cannot you fancy how she chuckles with delight 
over the trick she has played, and the clever way in 
which she has started her young on its travels? 
There is still another way in which birds help to 
scatter seeds. They alight in wet places, covering 
their little feet with mud. Now, a clot of mud may 
contain many different seeds; and for days this clot 
may stick to the bird’s foot, and thus cause the seeds 
it holds to be carried for hundreds of miles. 
Have you ever heard of Darwin? He was a great 
man who spent most of his life in studying plants and 
animals. 
How many years do you suppose he was interested 
in the study of those long, brown worms which you 
find in quantities in the lawn and after heavy rains 
along the sidewalk? At intervals for forty-four years 
he studied these little creatures which you girls think 
ugly and uninteresting enough, although the boys know 
they make fine fish bait. 
Well, Darwin once raised eighty-two plants from 
seeds contained in a clot of earth which was clinging 
