PRETTY POLL. 79 



say you will generously take my word for it. And,_per 

 contra, it may also have struck you that most tropical 

 fruits have thick or hard or nauseous rinds, which need 

 to be torn off before the monkeys or birds for whose use 

 they are intended, can get at them and eat them. Our 

 little northern strawberries, and raspberries, and 

 currants, and whortleberries, developed with a single 

 eye to the petty robins and finches of temperate climates, 

 can be popped into the mouth whole and eaten as they 

 stand : they are meant for small birds to devour, and to 

 disperse the tiny undigested nut-like seeds in return for 

 the bribe of the soft pulp that surrounds them. But it 

 is quite otherwise with oranges, shaddocks, bananas, 

 plantains, mangoes, and pine-apples : those great tropical 

 fruits can only be eaten properly with a knife and fork, 

 after stripping off the hard and often acrid rind that 

 guards and preserves them. They lay themselves out 

 for dispersion by monkeys, toucans, and other relatively 

 large and powerful fruit-eaters ; and the rind is put there 

 as a barrier against small thieves who would rob the 

 sweet pulp, but be absolutely incapable of carrying away 

 and dispersing the large and richly-stored seeds it 

 covers. 



Parrots and toucans, however, have no knives and forks 

 to cut off the rind with; but as monkeys use their 

 fingers, so the birds use for the same purpose their sharp 

 and powerful bills. No better nut-crackers and fruit- 

 parers could possibly be found. The parrot, in particular, 

 has developed for the purpose his curved and inflated beak 

 a wonderful weapon, keen as a tailor's scissors, and 

 moved by powerful muscles on either side of the face 



