ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. 45 



surface of a sister-flower. So, too, seeds are for the 

 most part either dispersed by animals or blown about by 

 the breezes of heaven to new situations. These are the 

 two most obvious means of locomotion provided by 

 nature ; and it is curious to see that they have both been 

 utilized almost equally by plants, alike for their pollen 

 and their seeds, just as they have been utilized by man 

 for his own purposes on sea or land, in ship, or windmill, 

 or pack-horse, or carriage. 



There are two ways in which animals may be 

 employed to disperse seeds voluntarily and involun- 

 tarily. They may be compelled to carry them against 

 their wills : or they may be bribed and cajoled and 

 flattered into doing the plant's work for it in return for 

 some substantial advantage or benefit the plant confers 

 upon them. The first plan is the one adopted by burrs 

 and cleavers. These adhesive fruits are like the man 

 who buttonholes you and won't be shaken off : they are 

 provided with little curved hooks or bent and barbed hairs 

 which catch upon the wool of sheep, the coat of cattle, 

 or the nether integuments of wayfaring humanity, and 

 can't be got rid of without some little difficulty. Most 

 of them, you will find on examination, belonged to con- 

 firmed hedgerow or woodside plants : they grow among 

 bushes or low scrub, and thickets of gorse or bramble. 

 Now, to such plants as these, it is obviously useful to 

 have adhesive fruits and seeds : for when sheep or 

 other animals get them caught in their coats, they carry 

 them away to other bushy spots, and there, to get rid of 

 the annoyance caused by the foreign body, scratch them 

 off at once against some holly-bush or blackthorn. You 



