the germ to
sprout. Others surround the seed with a fleecy substance, so that the
wind may carry it here and there and give it a chance to find a home
where it is not so crowded. Another tree has a little pop-gun
arrangement, by means of which it pops its seed to a distance of
several feet.

Other plants have seeds that are covered with a burr or "sticky"
bristles, which enables them to attach themselves to the wool of sheep
and other animals, and thus be carried about and finally dropped in
some spot far away from the parent plant, and thus the scattering of
the species be accomplished. Some plants show the most wonderful plans
and arrangements for this scattering of the seed in new homes where
there is a better opportunity for growth and development, the
arrangements for this purpose displaying something very much akin to
what we would call "ingenuity" if it were the work of a reasoning mind.
There are plants called cockle-burs whose seed-pods are provided with
stickers in every direction, so that anything brushing against them is
sure to pick them up. At the end of each sticker is a very tiny hook,
and these hooks fasten themselves tightly into anything that brushes
against it, animal wool, hair, or clothing, etc. Some of these seeds
have been known to have been carried to other quarters of the globe in
wool, etc., there to find new homes and a wider field.

Other plants, like the thistle, provide their seed with downy wings, by
which the wind carries them afar to other fields. Other seeds have a
faculty of tumbling and rolling along the ground to great distances,
owing to their peculiar shape and formation. The maple provides its
seed with a peculiar arrangement something like a propeller screw,
which when the wind strikes the trees and looses the seed, whirls the
latter through the air to a distance of a hundred yards or more. Other
seeds are provided with floating apparatus, which enables them to
travel many miles by stream or river, or rain washes. Some of these not
only float, but actually swim, having spider-like filaments, which
wriggle like legs, and actually propel the tiny seed along to its new
home. A recent writer says of these seeds that "so curiously lifelike
are their movements that it is almost impossible to believe that these
tiny objects, making good progress through the water, are really seeds,
and not insects."

The leaves of the Venus' Fly-trap fold upon each other and enclose the
insect whi