22 8 The Great World's Farm 



therefore, have done a great deal of planting, though they 

 would probably not carry their nuts far. 



The nuthatch often plants quite a colony of young 

 beeches around its haunts; for it has favorite trees to 

 which it resorts, after twisting a cluster of nuts from the 

 bough; its object being to fix the nuts in some crevice of 

 the bark where it may hammer at them. Very often, 

 however, it fails in the attempt, the nuts fall to the 

 ground, and under favorable circumstances, germinate. 



Monkeys, also, sometimes carry nuts and fruits to a 

 distance before eating them; and if meantime their atten- 

 tion be caught by something else, they will probably drop 

 and forget all about them. Brazil-nuts, for instance, are 

 inclosed in such a very hard, strong outer case that no 

 monkey can get at the contents, except by hammering it 

 for a long time against a rock, or a hard log of wood, 

 neither of which is always to be found close at hand. 



So much, then, for the voluntary carriers, whose work 

 is but small and limited compared with that of the great 

 army of involuntary carriers. 



Look, for example, at a dog when he has been hunting 

 in a ditch, and see how the burdocks and goose-grass, or 

 cleavers, have taken advantage of him, and made him act 

 as carrier for them. 



Now, what is true of the dog in this respect is true 

 also of many animals, wild and domestic, including man 

 himself. The fleece of sheep, the fur and hair of other 

 animals, the feathers of birds, the clothes of human 

 beings — all answer the purpose of these hooked, barbed, 

 and thorny fruits, by giving them something which they 

 can lay hold of. 



We have abundant proof of this in the way in which 



