156 THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



outer covering grows soft, sweet, and brightly col- 

 oured ; while the actual seed, though soft, is con- 

 tained in a hard and stony jacket, an inner layer of 

 the fruit coat. Here the true seed is what we call 

 the kernel, but it is amply protected by its bone- 

 like coverlet. In the apple and pear the ovary is 

 inferior; the fruit is thus crowned by the remains 

 of the calyx ; if you cut it across you will find it 

 consists of a fleshy part, which is the swollen stem, 

 enclosing the true fruit or core, with a number of 

 seeds which we call the pips. All these fruits be- 

 long to the family of the roses ; they serve to show 

 the immense variety of plan and structure which 

 occurs even in closely related species. Other suc- 

 culent fruits of the same family are the rose-hip, 

 the haw, the medlar, and the nectarine. 



Among familiar woodland fruits dispersed by 

 birds I may mention the elderberry, the dogwood, 

 the honeysuckle, the whortleberry, the holly, the 

 cuckoo-pint, the barberry, and the spindle-tree. 

 The white berries of the mistletoe, which is a 

 parasitic plant, are eaten by the missel-thrush, a 

 bird who has a special affection for this particu- 

 lar food. But they are very sticky, and the seeds 

 therefore adhere to the bird's beak and feet. To 

 get rid of them, he rubs them off on the fork of a 

 poplar branch, or in the bark of an apple-tree, 

 which are the exact places where the mistletoe 

 most desires to place itself. Many such close 

 correspondences between bird and fruit exist in 

 nature. 



Our northern berries are chiefly designed to be 

 eaten by small birds like robins and hawfinches. 

 But in southern climates larger fruits exist, 

 adapted to the tastes of larger animals such as 

 parrots, toucans, hornbills, fruit-bats, and mon- 



