PLANTS RIDE ON ANIMALS _ 93 
the parent plant has been preparing her babies for 
their autumn trip. At last their dainty brown 
travelling suits, all trimmed with sharp-pointed 
hooks, are finished; and every little hook or finger 
is ready to cling to the first passer-by, horse or cow, 
boy or girl, man or woman. For they have never 
been away from home before, and, like anxious chil- 
dren, they naturally wish to ride out into the big 
world! At last along rush a number of schoolboys 
on their outing. Seizing their opportunity, the 
tiny akenes catch hold of the boys’ trousers, and 
over the hills they ride, until time for the boys’ 
luncheon, when they are picked off the trousers and 
left many miles from their former homes, where 
they will take up their residence and start a new 
patch of stick-tights. 
Among the numerous kinds of seeds—such as 
those of strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries, 
cranberries, grapes, and currants—which are 
largely distributed by birds which eat them, it is 
not uncommon for seeds to attach themselves to 
the feet and feathers of birds, and thus ride away 
to a suitable place of abode. However, this is not 
so common a method of travelling as that of cling- 
ing by means of hooks. 
There grows in the United States a very weird 
looking fruit, known to botanists as the Martynia 
