168 TOMMY AND HIS FATHER AFIELD 



sects with no Intention of carrying the golden dust, 

 get caught in one of the five V-shaped traps which 

 lie at the ends of those pink lines. 



" These little traps, besides, have horny teeth, 

 and when they close on the fly's tongue he is held 

 a prisoner until he dies. It's pretty hard to starve 

 to death when so near a luscious feast." 



Tommy looked in the little flowers and saw a 

 number of mites and two flies that had met this 

 death. 



" They go to steal," he said, " and are made 

 life prisoners." 



When Tommy told me about it I thought the 

 little flowers acted in a cruel way because the flies 

 don't know It's wrong to steal nectar. 



On one of the sprays of Spreading Dogbane 

 which Tommy brought to show us the pods were 

 nearly ripe. Two of them hung together and 

 Grandmother said they were quite three Inches 

 long. They were more slender than a lead pencil. 

 We all thought them very big and Important-look- 

 ing for such little flowers to have made. Then 

 Grandmother picked one open with a pin, and 

 Inside It was closely packed with seeds all covered 

 with white, silky hairs. These hairs help the 

 seeds to sail through the air when they are ripe 

 and ready to find new places to plant themselves. 



" A truly lovely wild flower," Grandmother 

 said, " how glad we are to know it grows by the 

 stone wall I " 



