THE YOUNG 



NATUKA.LIST. 



5 



Any one who has sauntered leisurely 

 through a thicket of furze and broom 

 on a bright, sunny, summer's day, 

 must have become aware of a crisp, 

 crackling noise, accompanied by a 

 spatter of little pellets. This is caused 

 by the spontaneous bursting of the 

 ripe pods, the elastic tension of which 

 is so great as to cause them to curl 

 inside out with a spiral twist, which 

 ejects the seeds beyond the radius of 

 the parent bush, on which the empty 

 pods hang till the winter's frost causes 

 them to drop. The same trait is shown 

 by peas, tares, vetches, &c. 



A curious modification of this class 

 is seen in geraniums, where the fruit 

 is furnished with a long beak and a 

 five-celled ovary which, when mature, 

 bursts into five segments, each with its 

 own share of the beak, which curls up 

 into a corkscrew -like awn, the base 

 containing a single seed, which is 

 sometimes ejected by tlie rupture, but 

 more commonly hangs suspended by 

 two or three silken hairs till it finds a 

 favourable opportunity to drop — to be 

 floated away by the breeze or brushed 

 aside by animals. 



The best examples of our fourth 

 class are furnished by the nuts of the 

 hazel, beech, and chestnut, and the 

 acorns of the oak, which with their 

 hard, firm, bony coverings are almost 

 impervious to climatic changes, and 

 can survive a long journey by water, 

 by which, doubtless, they are often 



conveyed to a suitable habitat. The 

 same may be said of the flask or bottle- 

 like fruits of the sedges f Caress), which, 

 growing usually by lakes, pools and 

 streams, are chiefly dependant on water 

 carriage for their transports. All seeds 

 possess a certain amount of power to re- 

 sist the vicissitudes of atmospheric vari- 

 ations of heat and cold, drought and 

 moisture ; and this is manifested in an 

 especial degree by the hard, poKshed, 

 shell-like nucules of the Boraginacese 

 (forget-me-nots), Labiatse (mints, dead 

 nettles), the docks (Pol2/gonum) , and 

 goosefoots (Chenopodium), and in a 

 lesser degree perhaps by the cereals, 

 oats, barley, &c., and various other 

 grasses. In the hard stone enclosing 

 the seed of the plum and cherry, and 

 the parchment-like core of the apple 

 safely protecting the pips, we see a 

 combination of the present and the 

 next class, which includes all succulent 

 and juicy fruits, as the gooseberry and 

 currant, the apple and plum. 



Pulpy fruits are useful to the plant 

 in two ways : by falKng to the ground 

 and decaying, thus forming a mass of 

 natural manure, the most easily assimi- 

 lable food for the infant plant in the 

 germinating seed. But for our present 

 purpose we are more concerned with 

 their attractiveness to birds, to whom, 

 as is well known, they form a most 

 important food supply. Although, of 

 course, the smaller seeds and grains 

 when devoured by birds become diges- 



