146 STUDYING NATURE. 



in large quantities from Asia Minor ; many kinds 

 are of great value in dyeing ; and the life-history 

 of ^ the numerous gall-flies is most curious and 

 interesting. 



Careful drawings of the buds of trees as they 

 open in spring will reveal the delicate plaiting of 

 the tiny leafage within. We can then discern how 

 some leaves are folded lengthways or in half, others 

 curled up spirally or fluted ; we shall see how the 

 embryo leaves are protected by more than a dozen 

 scales, often lined with silky down, and then, as in 

 the case of the horse-chestnut, still further guarded 

 from the winter's cold by an outer coating of resin. 



Again, the fruits and seeds of trees would prove 

 an interesting subject. I wonder how man}' young 

 people know the difference between the English 

 sycamore, which is a true maple, and the sycomore 

 of Palestine, which is a fig-tree ; and yet they are 

 totally unlike each other the first producing a 

 dry seed vessel, and the other an eatable fruit ; 

 the sycamore usually having a stem twenty or 

 thirty feet high before it branches, and the syco- 

 more dividing near the ground, so that Zaccheus 

 found no difficulty in climbing its ample stems. 



