198 ESSENTIALS OF BOTANY 
seeds. It is worth while, therefore, for the student to ask 
himself some such questions as these: 1 
(1) Why is the pulp of so many fruits eatable ? 
(2) Why are the seeds of many pulpy fruits bitter or 
otherwise unpleasantly flavored, as in the orange? 
(3) Why are the seeds or the layers surrounding the 
seeds of many pulpy fruits too hard to be chewed, or 
digested, as in the date and the peach? 
(4) Why are the seeds of some pulpy fruits too small 
to be easily chewed, and also indigestible, as in the fig 
and the currant? 
(5) Account for the not infrequent presence of currant 
bushes or asparagus plants in such localities as the forks 
of large trees, sometimes at a height of twenty, thirty, or 
more feet above the ground. : 
Careful observation of the neighborhood of peach, plum, 
cherry, or apple trees at the season when the fruit is ripe 
and again during the following spring, and an examina- 
tion into the distribution of wild apple or pear trees in 
pastures where they occur, will help the student who can 
make such observations to answer the preceding questions. 
So, too, would an examination of the habits of fruit-eating 
quadrupeds and of the crop and gizzard of fruit-eating 
birds during the season when the fruits upon which they 
feed are ripe. 
244. Seed-Carrying purposely done by Animals. — In the 
cases referred to in the preceding .sections, animals have 
been seen to act as unconscious or even unwilling seed- 
carriers. Sometimes, however, they carry off seeds with 
the plan of storing them for food. Ants drag away with 
1 See Kerner and Oliver’s Natural History of Plants, Vol. Il, pp. 442-450. . 
