siness best, and is
not without sufficient reasons of its own for this strange and, to some
extent, unmannerly behaviour. By its queer trick of squirting, it
manages to kill at least two birds with one stone. For, in the first
place, the sudden elastic jump of the fruit frightens away browsing
animals, such as goats and cattle. Those meditative ruminants are
little accustomed to finding shrubs or plants take the aggressive
against them; and when they see a fruit that quite literally flies in
their faces of its own accord, they hesitate to attack the uncanny vine
which bristles with such magical and almost miraculous defences.
Moreover, the juice of the squirting cucumber is bitter and nauseous,
and if it gets into the eyes or nostrils of man or beast, it impresses
itself on the memory by stinging like red pepper. So the trick of
squirting serves in a double way as a protection to the plant against
the attacks of herbivorous animals and other enemies.

But that's not all. Even when no enemy is near, the ripe fruits at last
drop off of themselves, and scatter their seeds elastically in every
direction. This they do simply in order to disseminate their kind in
new and unoccupied spots, where the seedlings will root and find an
opening in life for themselves. Observe, indeed, that the very word
'disseminate' implies a general vague recognition of this principle of
plant-life on the part of humanity. It means, etymologically, to
scatter seed; and it points to the fact that everywhere in nature seeds
are scattered broadcast, infinite pains being taken by the mother-plant
for their general diffusion over wide areas of woodland, plain, or
prairie.

Let us take as examples a single little set of instances, familiar to
everybody, but far commoner in the world at large than the inhabitants
of towns are at all aware of: I mean, the winged seeds, that fly about
freely in the air by means of feathery hairs or gossamer, like
thistle-down and dandelion. Of these winged types we have many hundred
varieties in England alone. All the willow-herbs, for example, have
such feathery seeds (or rather fruits) to help them on their way
through life; and one kind, the beautiful pink rose-bay, flies about so
readily, and over such wide spaces of open country, that the plant is
known to farmers in America as fireweed, because it always springs up
at once over whole square miles of charred and smoking soil after every
devastating forest fire. It t