The Seniors of the Forest 299 



travel the cone-scales, which have hitherto been 

 pressed together, draw apart, setting their wards 

 free. The scales of the firs drop away altogether, 

 leaving nothing of the cone but a woody axis. 



The cones of the hemlocks, pines, and spruces 

 gradually assume a pendant position while they are 

 maturing, so that when their scales separate the 

 ripe seeds are at once given to the winds. Thus 

 the cone-bearers, like good parents, do their ut- 

 most " in protection of their tender ones." 



But alas! In the vegetable world, no less than 

 in the worlds of mice and men, the best-laid 

 schemes " gang aft aglee." 



For often, in latter summer, one may see a 

 squirrel perched upon a pine-branch, holding a 

 nearly-ripe cone between his fore-paws. With 

 attitudes and actions like those of a little monkey 

 he tears away the scales and flings them earth- 

 ward, and meantime he feasts eagerly upon the 

 seeds whose stores of nutriment were prepared and 

 laid away with no foreboding of his sharp claws 

 and nibbling teeth thrust impertinently between 

 Nature's plans and their fulfilment. 



