WAYS OF NATURE 
seek concealment also? It is just as helpless as the 
others, and is just as sweet-meated. It occurs to me 
that birds can do nothing with it on account of its 
thick shell; it needs, therefore, to attract some four- 
footed creature that will carry it away from the par- 
ent tree, and this is done by the mice and the squir- 
rels. But if this is the reason of its whiteness, there 
is the dusky butternut and the black walnut, both 
more or less concealed by their color, and yet having 
the same need of some creature to scatter them. 
The seeds of the maple, and of the ash and the 
linden, are obscurely colored, and they are winged; 
hence they do not need the aid of any creature in 
their dissemination. To say that this is the reason 
of their dull, unattractive tints would be an expla- 
nation on a par with much that one hears about 
the significance of animal and vegetable coloration. 
Why is corn so bright colored, and wheat and barley 
so dull, and rice so white? No doubt there is a 
reason in each case, but I doubt if that reason has 
any relation to the surrounding animal life. 
The new Botany teaches that the flowers have 
color and perfume to attract the insects to aid in 
their fertilization — a need so paramount with all 
plants, because plants that are fertilized by aid of 
the wind~vhave very inconspicuous flowers. Is it 
equally true that the high color of most fruits is to 
attract some hungry creature to come and eat them 
and thus scatter the seeds? From the dwarf cornel, 
252 
