6 



THE YOUNG 



NATURALIST. 



ted in their stomachs, and, therefore, 

 lost for the purposes of perpetuating 

 the plant. Yet, as a compensation, 

 these minute seeds, are produced in 

 such great abundance that the bird 

 tax is scarcely, if at all, missed ; and 

 in the hurry-scurry of fright or frolic 

 they are always likely to carry or drop 

 some at a distance uninjured. But 

 many of the seeds in this class of fruits 

 are invested with so hard and bony a 

 covering, as the seeds of most berries 

 and stone fruits, that they are able to 

 pass through the alimentary canal of 

 birds unaltered, and be deposited with 

 the excreta in otherwise inaccessible 

 situations. In mountainous regions 

 everyone must have noticed the rowan- 

 tree, gooseberry, rose, and a host of 

 similar fruited plants, clinging to the 

 clefts of the rocky ravine, fringing the 

 face of the most precipitous cliffs, or 

 perched on dizzy crags, that the most 

 dextrous climber would shrink from 

 attempting to scale ; and this airy emi- 

 nence they can only have reached 

 through the agency of birds. 



Always impelled by their sharp set 

 appetites, the birds are guided and 

 allured by the bright and brilliant col- 

 ouring of most succulent fruits. The 

 N.O. B-osacese furnishes the largest and 

 most varied assortment of the pulpy 

 fruits, including plums, cherries, 

 peaches, apricots, sloes, rasps, the 

 glossy bramble so tempting to the 

 school-boy in the autumn hedgerow, 



the luscious strawberry, the brilliant 

 " hip " of the rose, and " haw ^' of the 

 of the thorn, the scarlet berries of the 

 mountain ash, the white beam and ser- 

 vice tree, the medlar and quince, and 

 best of all, the juicy apple and saccha- 

 rine pear. 



Of berries proper there are the sober 

 hued gooseberry and brighter coloured 

 currrants, the black elderberry and the 

 rich crimson of honeysuckle and guel- 

 der rose, the livid purple of the deadly 

 nightshade {Belladonna), the red bit- 

 tersweet and bryony. The Ericaceae 

 are prolific in attractive fruits, as the 

 familiar edible bleaberry with its deli- 

 cate bloom, nestling amidst the glossy 

 evergreen leaves, the bog whortleberry, 

 the deep pink cranberry, tempting the 

 adventurous botanist to wet feet in the 

 treacherous spongy bogs where it loves 

 to grow. On the drier upland moors 

 the scarlet cowberry and the red and 

 black bearberries, with the small jet 

 bead -like crowberry, form at least the 

 desert, if not the staple food, of the 

 cheery grouse in their season. Nothing 

 can well be handsomer than the cor- 

 nelian coralline clusters of the ripe 

 barberry in hedges and shrubberies. 

 'Tis a pity it bears such a bad repute 

 for harbouring the rust of wheat fungus 

 {JEcidium), so that agriculturists are 

 more disposed to extirpate than plant 

 this ornamental shrub. 



Exceedingly common in shrubberies 

 is the white, waxen fruit of the snow- 



