ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. 47 



like London hospitals, upon the voluntary system, 

 produce that very familiar form of edible capsule which 

 we commonly call in the restricted sense a fruit or berry. 

 In such cases, the seed-vessel is usually swollen and 

 pulpy : it is stored with sweet juices to attract the birds 

 or other animal allies, and it is brightly coloured so as 

 to advertise to their eyes the presence of the alluring 

 sugary foodstuff. These instances, however, are now so 

 familiar to everybody that I won't dwell upon them at 

 any length. Even the degenerate schoolboy of the 

 present day, much as he has declined from the high 

 standard set forth by Macaulay, knows all about the way 

 the actual seed itself is covered (as in the plum or the 

 cherry) by a hard stony coat which ' resists the action 

 of the gastric juice ' (so physiologists put it, with their 

 usual frankness), and thus passes undigested through the 

 body of its swallower. All I will do here, therefore, is to 

 note very briefly that some edible fruits, like the two just 

 mentioned, as well as the apricot, the peach, the nectarine, 

 and the mango, consist of a single seed with its outer 

 covering ; in others, as in the raspberry, the blackberry, 

 the cloudberry, and the dew-berry, many seeds are massed 

 together, each with a separate edible pulp ; in yet others, 

 as in the gooseberry, the currant, the grape, and the 

 whortleberry, several seeds are embedded within the 

 fruit in a common pulpy mass ; and in others again, as 

 in the apple, pear, quince, and medlar, they are surrounded 

 by a quantity of spongy edible flesh. Indeed, the variety 

 that prevails among fruits in this respect almost defies 

 classification : for sometimes, as in the mulberry, the 

 separate little fruits of several distinct flowers grow 



