64 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



flower for the perfection of its arrangements to secure 

 fertilization by exactly the right type of blossom. If 

 you look at to-day's bunches of primroses, you will 

 see that some of them are " pin-flowers," that is, they 

 have the pistil visible in the middle of the flower, like 

 the head of a slender green pin. Others show their 

 anthers there instead. There are, indeed, three dis- 

 tinct types of primrose flower which (Darwin says) 

 so arrange the relative lengths of anther and pistil 

 as to ensure that each individual bloom shall only be 

 fertilized by its exact affinity. The object, of course, 

 is to secure " cross-fertilization " a prospect as 

 soothing to troubled science as "that blessed word 

 ' Mesopotamia ' " was to the old lady in the story 

 in order that, for one thing, undue variation from 

 type may be checked. And then for the abandoned 

 flower to go and freely produce an assortment of 

 children which might be anything from a " primlip " 

 to a " cowsrose ! " 



GAME BIRDS AND EGG-STEALERS. 



April 24. Most of the pheasants began to lay by 

 the middle of this month, preceded by a day or two 

 by the French partridges, and followed by the English 

 partridges, which are always a week or two later than 

 the " red-legs." With the filling of the game-birds' 

 nests the keeper's anxieties are doubled : because, 

 according to him, there are few creatures in fur or 

 feathers which will not take toll of the eggs upon 

 occasion. Besides Nature's recognized egg-stealers 

 the jays, magpies, crows, etc., which will hunt the 

 hedgerows and the covert sides as methodically as 



