THE PEAR HARVEST. 201 



so-called frnit. Indeed, it is difficult to examine a 

 pear without observing that the fleshy part really consists 

 of a mere expansion of the stalk, with its fibres gradu- 

 ally lost in a mass of sweet succulent tissue. This 

 change has been very curiously brought about by the 

 sinking of the seed-vessels into the body of the stalk, a 

 singular plan for insuring safer fertilization on the visits 

 of bees. 



The same device is found throughout all the allied 

 members of the rose family, such as the true roses, the 

 hawthorn, and the medlar ; but nowhere in such per- 

 fection as among the narrower pear and apple group. 

 It has nothing in common with the method adopted by 

 the strawberry, where the common bed of the numerous 

 seed-cells assumes a succulent condition ; nor with that 

 adopted by the raspberry and blackberry, where the 

 outer coat of each seed-vessel becomes itself a juicy 

 covering ; nor with that adopted by the plum and 

 cherry, which is identical with the raspberry type, save 

 that the number of pulpy seed-vessels to each blossom is 

 reduced to one only. The immense variety of plans by 

 which nature thus secures the same end the dispersion 

 of the seed by birds or mammals shows us that what- 

 ever may be the character of the useful tendency, it will 

 be equally encouraged and selected by survival of the 

 fittest, irrespective of its conformity to or divergence 

 from any fanciful ideal type. 



It is fairly certain that the hawthorns, medlars, and a 

 few other allied groups are all descended from a common 

 ancestor with the pears and apples, and that this ances- 

 tor branched off from the main line of rose development 

 at a very early period. All of them still retain the 

 primitive number of five fruit-cells, which has been 

 wholly lost in many allied types. But while the 



