THE NOVEMBER SEED-CROP 



67 



of the lesser animals and a few even of the larger ones, like 

 the woodchuck, now fat and drowsy. She removes the greater 

 number of the birds by migration to feed in summer climes. 

 There remain to be fed through the winter only a small pro- 

 portion of the birds and a larger proportion of the mammals, 

 including ourselves. All these are by nature improvident — 

 given to eating to excess when there is plenty, forgetting 

 future needs. So, she makes it impossible that any lusty 

 foragers, or all of them put together, shall be able to dissipate 

 and waste her patrimony. She keeps it in a considerable part 

 from them against the hour of need. If she grows luscious 

 fruits which, when ripe, will fall into their mouths she, also 

 grows roots underground, and imposes the labor of digging to 

 get them. If some of her seeds ripen all at once and fall 

 readily, others ripen at intervals, and are held tightly in their 

 husks. It takes labor to get them. The animals that eat in 

 winter have to work their way. 



Nature's population is suited to her 

 products. Her seed-eating rodents 

 are all armed with stout chisellike 

 teeth, adapted ' for cutting anything, 

 from the nutshells to chaff. Her seed- 

 eating birds are armed with stout, 

 seed-cracking, husk-opening beaks. 

 Her little birds are agile, and can 

 cling with their feet to swaying twigs, 

 and ravage the loaded seed-cones 

 pendent upon them. The beaks of 

 the crossbills are especially adapted to 

 extracting the seeds from the cones of 

 our evergreen trees. 

 The seeds we cultivate for food are cereals and lentils. 

 With the exception of maize they came with our ancestors 

 from other climes. Some of the native cereals have heavier 



Fig. 38. Specialized seed- 

 handling apparatus: a, 

 the teeth of a porcupine ; 



b, the beak of a finch; 



c, the beak of a cross- 

 bill, adapted for extract- 

 ing the seeds of pine 

 cones. 



