A WAYSIDE BERRY. 23 



outer flesh. Then the birds see and recog- 

 nise it as edible, and govern themselves 

 accordingly. 



But if this is the genesis of the straw- 

 berry, asks somebody, why have not all the 

 potentillas and the whole strawberry tribe 

 also become berries of the same type ? Why 

 are there still potentilla fruit-clusters which 

 consist of groups of dry seed-like nuts ? Ay, 

 there's the rub. Science cannot answer as 

 yet. After all, these questions are still in 

 their infancy, and we can scarcely yet do more 

 than discover a single stray interpretation 

 here and there. In the present case a botanist 

 can only suggest either that the potentilla 

 finds its own mode of dispersion equally well 

 adapted to its own peculiar circumstances, or 

 else that the lucky accident, the casual com- 

 bination of circumstances, which produced the 

 first elongation of the receptacle in the straw- 

 berry has never happened to befall its more 

 modest kinsfolk. For on such occasional 

 freaks of nature the whole evolution of new 



