attract customers. This sign is its flaunting color. But at night-time color cannot be seen by those insects which are of night-flying habits. They are therefore attracted by perfume, as is the case with the sweet-smelling honeysuckle. 11. The daisy, on the other hand, closes up during the darkness, for it does not require visits from insects of the night-flying kind. 12. All flowers do not contain both stamens and pistil; the cucumber, for instance, has one stem producing flowers with stamens, and another producing flowers with pistils. Insects become useful if not necessary in these; for they daub themselves with the pollen dust of one flower, and carry it on their bodies to the stigma of another ; and in this way do they make the plant become fruitful. 13. Truly the ways of Nature are very wonderful in matters that are seemingly so small. An insect buzzing from flower to flower is a circumstance we scarcely notice; and yet it means that the creature is seeking food to sustain its own life, and at the same time is fertilizing plants in order that they may grow and replenish the earth. 14. Grasses and plants that bear colorless flowers do not depend upon insects for their fertilization; it is the wind that sways them about and scatters their pollen in such a way that some of it will be sure to come in contact with the stigmas. And thus do the grasses of the field live and thrive merely by waving in a summer breeze. 1. How refreshing it is on a hot summer day to rest for a while in some cool, shady spot, especially after a long walk in the glare of the sun. 2. The long green grass, the trickling water of the little wayside stream, and the rustling of the leaves on the trees, all help to rest and soothe one. 3. The tall trees stretch out their arms overhead to protect us from the fierce rays of the noonday sun. A carpet of cool grass is laid ready for our feet. 4. On one side, the bank seems to be upheld by the trunks of the trees; but on the other side, the high sandy bank has been deeply burrowed by the busy rabbits. Dead leaves are strewn about, and lacy ferns spring from every crevice in the rocks. 5. A little farther along, where the road begins to climb the hill, is an old stone wall on which we shall perhaps find the curious hart's tongue fern, with its strap-shaped fronds, growing in the joints of the damp masoni y. 6. How different in appearance is this fern from the frail maidenhair ferns we have just passed, or A DOCK LEAF. FROND OF FERN. FROND OF FERN, from the hardy bracken we can see over in the woods yonder. So widely does the hart's tongue differ from the other ferns, that we are half inclined to doubt that it is a fern; it seems to bear more relation to the vagabond dock we see on every bit of waste land we pass. 7. If you pluck a dock leaf and a frond of this fern, and compare the two, the difference between them soon becomes quite clear. 8. On the back of a frond are a number of rustycolored ridges. These alone are enough to tell us that the fern belongs to the order of flowerless plants. As to the dock, it boasts a tall spike of ruddy flowers; do not its companions flaunt themselves on every side of us? 9. The rusty ridges on the back of the frond are spore-cases. When ripe and very dry, they will be split open by a springy ring which will stretch itself out straight, and send the spores flying. Spores are not seeds, but much simpler things that take the place of seeds. 10. So small and light are they that, when the scattering takes place, many of them will be borne away on the wind to a distance, some falling where they will be wasted, and some on places that will exactly suit them. 11. A spore that alights on a moist shady bank, or on a stone kept damp by the plashing of a little spring, has found a very likely spot to suit it. For in due time plantlets, in the shape of tiny green scales which overlap each other, will be found on that moist surface. These heart-shaped scales have |