GATHERED BY THE WAY 



color, or the eye of a bird of prey, and thus probably 

 deceives its victims, but there is no reason to believe 

 that this guise is the result of any sort of mimicry. 



V. THE COLORS OF FRUITS 



Mr. Wallace even looks upon the nuts as pro 

 tectively colored, because they are not to be eaten. 

 But without the agency of the birds and the squir 

 rels, how are the heavy nuts, such as the chestnut, 

 beechnut, acorn, butternut, and the like, to be scat 

 tered ? The blue jay is often busy hours at a time 

 in the fall, planting chestnuts and acorns, and red 

 squirrels carry butternuts and walnuts far from the 

 parent trees, and place them in forked limbs and 

 holes for future use. Of course, many of these fall to 

 the ground and take root. If the protective colora 

 tion of the nuts, then, were effective, it would defeat 

 a purpose which every tree and shrub and plant has 

 at heart, namely, the scattering of its seed. I notice 

 that the button-balls on the sycamores are protec 

 tively colored also, and certainly they do not crave 

 concealment. It is true that they hang on the naked 

 trees till spring, when no concealment is possible. It 

 is also true that the jays and the crows carry away 

 the chestnuts from the open burrs on the trees where 

 no color scheme would conceal them. But the squir 

 rels find them upon the ground even beneath the 

 snow, being guided, no doubt, by the sense of smell. 



The hickory nut is almost white ; why does it not 

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