234 NUTS AND NUTTING. 



isfied, and beechnuts probably .afford as nnich 

 I)leasure to the Imman race in modern Enghmd as 

 all the costly peaches, apricots, and nectarines iu 

 the whole country put together. 



It is a very noticeable fact about these, our 

 English nuts, native or acclimatized, that they 

 have in every case a prickly or else a bitter and 

 disagreeable outer covering. Filberts, as we all 

 know, are enclosed in a ragged-edged, green 

 envelope, which turns brown as they ripen, and 

 which is defensively armed with tiny hair-like 

 prickles, extremely close-set over its whole sur- 

 face. These prickles are annoying enough, even 

 to our hard human fingers, in certain stages of 

 their existence , and almost everybody has noticed 

 tliat to pick green filberts is a very disngreeable 

 or even painful operation. But the filbert is 

 armed not so much against the dej)redations of 

 boys and men as against the obtrusive little teeth 

 of dormice and squirrels. Now, these animals 

 have to bite a hole through the filbert in order 

 to get at it, and the prickly hairs upon its surface 

 are intended, to a great extent, as protective 

 against such tiny woodland enemies. The soft 

 bare skin on a dormouse's nose is easily irritated 

 by the stinging bristles, which only penetrate 

 deeper and deeper in proportion as the creature 

 rubs its snout against the branches of the tree in 

 order to get rid of them. Nevertheless, dormice 



