10 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



place that they cave to rest awhile, but then they settle 

 down at once, send down their roots, unfold their leaves, 

 assume a bright green, and become quiet, useful citizens in 

 their own great kingdom of plants. 



10. Seeds that have not learned to fly with their own or 

 other people's wings, it seems are taught to swim. Trees 

 and bushes which bear nuts love low grounds and river- 

 banks. Why? Because their fruit is shaped like a small 

 boat, and the rivulet, playing with its tiny ripples over sil- 

 ver sands, as well as the broad wave of the Pacific, carry 

 their seed alike, safely and swiftly, to new homes. Rivers 

 float down the fruits of mountain regions into deep valleys 

 and to far-off coasts, and the Gulf Stream of our Atlantic 

 carries annually the rich products of the torrid zone of 

 America to the distant shores of Iceland and Norway. 

 Seeds of plants growing in Jamaica and Cuba have been 

 gathered in the quiet coves of the Hebrides. 



11. But we need not go to far-off countries to see plants 

 wandering about in the world : our own gardens afford us, 

 though on a smaller scale, many an instance of the reckless- 

 ness of those very plants that arc so much commiserated 

 because they can not move about and choose their own home. 

 Every casual observer even knows that many bulbs, like 

 those of crocus, tulips, or narcissus, rise or sink by form- 

 ing new bulbs above or below, until they have reached 

 the proper depth of soil which best suits their constitution 

 — or perhaps their fancy. Some orchids have a regular 

 locomotion : the old root dies, the new one forms invaria- 

 bly in one and the same direction, and thus they proceed 

 onward year after year, though at a very modest, stage- 

 coach rate. Strawberries, on the contrary, put on seven- 

 league boots, and often escape from the rich man's garden 

 to refresh the weary traveler by the wayside. Raspberries, 

 again, mine their way stealthily under ground by a sub- 

 terranean, mole-like process ; blind but not imguided, for 



