Seeds and Sowers 263 



them and then forgetting them. But they seldom 

 store their harvests very far away from the shelter 

 of the boughs that bore them ; and many other 

 agents do more to scatter the seed. The easiest 

 for the human eye to follow is the wind. From 

 early August the thistle-seeds go floating far and 

 wide across the landscape, wandering over bays 

 and rivers, and flurrying into the draughts round 

 city cornices and chimneys. In the lanes in calm 

 September weather, when no wind blows strong 

 enough to lift the seed and launch it across the 

 hedge-top, the downy masses swell day by day 

 among the thistle-heads, as if growing larger and 

 lighter by some internal fermentation. The indi- 

 vidual globe of thistle-down is perfectly adapted 

 for travelling long distances. Rayed on all sides 

 with stiff yet elastic threads, it has a wonderful 

 faculty of eluding the grip of all but the most 

 tenacious snares and casting itself free again upon 

 the breeze. Its remarkable capacity for travel can 

 be well observed on a range of lofty hills. When 

 the wind blows freshly, then the globe of down 

 springs actively aloft ; when it falls to a gentle 

 zephyr, it descends to earth, and moves in light 

 leaps from tuft to tuft of fern and creeping bilberry, 

 or rolls slowly onwards like a ball. Where the 

 ground breaks away into a precipitous rift, it seems 

 as though it must inevitably be lost in the abyss. 

 But such gorges are the channels of swift upward 

 currents ; and the thistle-down no sooner begins 

 to fall gently towards the crags of the raven, 

 where it could find no spot suitable for its growth, 



