NUTS AND NUTTING. 241 



and none but the hardest succeed in peacefully 

 germinating into young palms or nut-bearing 

 trees. 



Our English nuts all display the characteristic 

 signs of nuts in general to a somewhat less marked 

 extent, but still very noticeably. While most 

 fruits are brightly colored, as if on purpose to at- 

 tract the animals by whose aid they are finally 

 dispersed, most nuts are green as long as they re- 

 main upon the tree, so as to escape notice among 

 the surrounding foliage, and brown as soon as 

 they are ripe enough to fall, so as to harmonize 

 with the faded leaves and dry grass and dying 

 bracken underneath. For, just as it is advanta- 

 geous to the fruit to be eaten, in order that its 

 seed ma}' be more surely sown away from the 

 shade of the parent tree, so it is advantageous to 

 the nut to escape notice and not to be eaten, 

 since to eat it is to destroy the seed which the 

 tree has produced as a future plant of its own 

 species. It is for this protective purpose that the 

 walnut possesses its bitter and nauseous husk, en- 

 closing its solid shell ; so that not one walnut out 

 of ten can be got at by the little gnawing animals 

 who perpetually compass its destruction. It is for 

 this purpose that the cliestnut has acquired its 

 prickly coat, and the filbert its unpleasantly hairy 

 envelope. And, further to guard against the 

 depredations of insects in particular, the inner ker- 



