248 PROSERPINA. 



he maintains the distinction, when the tree pretends 

 to have changed it. Thus, in the chesnut, the 

 inner coat of the husk becomes brown, adheres to 

 the seed, and seems part of it ; and we naturally 

 call only the thick, green, prickly coat, the husk. 

 But this is only one of the deceiving tricks of 

 Nature, to compel our attention more closely. The 

 real place of separation, to her mind, is between 

 the mahogany coloured shell and the nut itself, 

 and that more or less silky and flossy coating 

 within the brown shell is the true lining of the 

 entire 'husk.' The paler brown skin, following the 

 rugosities of the nut, is the true sack or skin of 

 the seed. Similarly in the walnut and almond. 



9. But, in the apple, two new tricks are played 

 us. First, in the brown skin of the ripe pip, we 

 might imagine we saw the part correspondent to 

 the mahogany skin of the chesnut, and therefore 

 the inner coat of the husk. But it is not so. 

 The brown skin of the pips belongs to them pro- 

 perly, and is all their own. It is the true skin 

 or sack of the seed. The inner coat of the husk 

 is the smooth, white, scaly part of the core that 

 holds them. 



Then, — for trick number two. We should as 

 naturally imagine the skin of the apple, which we 

 peel off, to be correspondent to the skin of the 



