ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. 51 



contents to the four winds of heaven. Such plants may 

 be said to discharge their grains on the principle of 

 the bow and arrow. The balsam is a familiar example 

 of this startling mode of moving to fresh fields and 

 pastures new : its capsule consists of five long straight 

 valves, which break asunder elastically the moment they 

 are touched, when fully ripe, and shed their seeds on all 

 sides, like so many small bombshells. Our friend the 

 squirting cucumber, which served as the prime text for 

 this present discourse, falls into somewhat the same 

 category, though in other ways it rather resembles the 

 true succulent fruits, and belongs, indeed, to the 

 same family as the melon, the gourd, the pumpkin, and 

 the vegetable-marrow, almost all of which are edible and 

 in every way fruit-like. Among English weeds, the 

 little bifctercress that grows on dry walls and hedge- 

 banks forms an excellent example of the same device. 

 Village children love to touch the long, ripe, brown 

 capsules on the top with one timid finger, and then 

 jump away, half -laughing, half terrified, when the mild- 

 looking little plant goes off suddenly with a small bang 

 and shoots its grains like a catapult point-blank in their 

 faces. 



It is in the tropics, however, that these elastic fruits 

 reach their highest development. There they have to 

 fight, not merely against such small fry as robins, 

 squirrels, and harvest-mice, but against the aggressive 

 parrot, the hard-billed touchan, the persistent lemur, 

 and the inquisitive monkey. Moreover, the elastic fruits 

 of the tropics grow often on spreading forest trees, and 

 must therefore shed their seeds to immense distances if 



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