THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 559 



up fruits in their underground abodes. Frequently a 

 part of the booty accumulated by their active foresight 

 is left forgotten in the ground, germinates there, and de- 

 velops with the return of spring. At other times the 

 weapon of the sportsman slaughters the owner of the store, 

 and his hoard turns to the profit of vegetation. Squirrels 

 break down the cones of the pine in order to devour the 

 seeds, of which they are very fond. But during this occu- 

 pation some of the seeds escape them, fall, and take root 

 in the ground. 



Some maminals assist the process of dissemination by 

 a still more simple means: the seeds cling to their avooI 

 and are transported hither and thither by them during 

 their peregrinations. The seeds of the burdock, which 

 end in a hook, are very well adapted for this purpose. 

 Those of the goose-grass {Galium aparine), roughened 

 with fine points like so many fish-hooks, cling to the skin 

 of any animal or the dress of any man Avho may happen 

 to pass near them, a peculiarity which accjuired for 

 this plant the surname of ■philanthropos among the witty 

 Greeks. 



Although animals consume a large quantity of seeds 

 for their food, nature by a happy compensation finds in 

 this consumption an inexhaustible source of regeneration. 



In this way great troops of reindeer which are scattered 

 over the plains of Siberia, emigrating in masses on all 

 sides, sow, as they jDass along, a host of plants, the seeds 

 of which, swallowed with their food, have resisted their 

 digestive powers. 



It is to the thi'ushes, which eat with avidity the fruit of 

 the mistletoe, that we owe the propagation of this sacred 

 plant, so celebrated in ancient Gaul, and which the Druids 

 only gathered with a golden sickle. 



71 



