spots that best suits the young mistletoe for sprouting in. Man, in
turn, makes use of the sticky pulp for the manufacture of bird-lime,
and so employs against the birds the very qualities which the plant
intended as a bribe for their kindly services.

Among seeds that trust for their disposal to the wind, the commonest,
simplest, and least evolved type is that of the ordinary capsule, as in
the poppies and campions. At first sight, to be sure, a casual observer
might suppose there existed in these cases no recognisable device at
all for the dissemination of the seedlings. But you and I, most
excellent and discreet reader, are emphatically _not_, of course, mere
casual observers. _We_ look close, and go to the very root of things.
And when we do so, we see for ourselves at once that almost all
capsules open--where? why, at the top, so that the seeds can only be
shaken out when there is a high enough wind blowing to sway the stems
to and fro with some violence, and scatter the small black grains
inside to a considerable distance. Furthermore, in many instances, of
which the common poppy-head is an excellent example, the capsule opens
by lateral pores at the top of a flat head--a further precaution which
allows the seeds to get out only by a few at a time, after a distinct
jerk, and so scatters them pretty evenly, with different winds, over a
wide circular space around the mother plant. Experiment will show how
this simple dodge works. Try to shake out the poppy-seed from a ripe
poppy-head on the plant as it grows, without breaking the stem or
bending it unnaturally, and you will easily see how much force of wind
is required in order to put this unobtrusive but very effective
mechanism into working order.

The devices of this character employed by various plants for the
dispersal of seeds even in ordinary dry capsules are far too numerous