150 NATURE STUDY. 



might wholly disappear. But the partridge-berr>' fed the 

 birds, and the birds have helped the partridge-berry. 

 It is it simple and yet very effective exchange of help- 

 fulness. The partridge-berry holds the fruit tight on its 

 tiny stems until the birds find and eat it and fly away to 

 scatter the seeds through the woods, among bushes in the 

 pastures, and, indeed, almost everywhere. The more par- 

 tridge-berries there are, the more birds can live through 

 the winter ; the more the birds scatter the seeds, the more 

 partridge-berries there may be ; and so the mutual help- 

 fulness goes on year after year. 



Now we see why the partridge-berries are not allowed to 

 fall off, and why they are so bright red when ripe, and why 

 the leaves are always green beneath the snow or under the 

 dead brown leaves of trees that sometimes cover them. 

 Little Mitchella often hides, but she wears a green dress, 

 that the birds may find her, and she offers them a good 

 meal whenever they are hungry. She does not know, of 

 course, but it is the very best thing she could do, for her- 

 self and her own kind, as well as for the birds. Kindness 

 and helpfulness often work this way; but that is another 

 sort of lesson. 



The checkerberry, or wintergreen, is another example 

 of a plant with leaves persistently green and with red ber- 

 ries, which depends upon the birds for the scattering of its 

 seeds. In both partridge-berry and the checkerberry the 

 fruit is " good to eat" as soon as it is ripe, and is not 

 changed by the hardest freezing ; but there are many 

 plants, especially among the shrubs and vines, which bear 

 bright-colored berries that are distasteful to our summer 

 birds, and are left by them when they go south in autumn. 

 These hard, sour, bitter or acrid berries remain until the 

 frosts have mellowed them and improved their flavor some- 

 what, when they are quite acceptable to winter birds, who 

 cannot, if they would, be so fastidious as their summer 



