nt, holly, strawberry,
red-berried elder, winter berry, honeysuckle, and many more. Where
the leaves are liable to become red in autumn the berries are often
blue. Of such, notice wild grapes, blueberries, and berries of
sassafras, though the flowering dogwood has red leaves as well as
red berries.

There is a reason for prickles on rosebushes. When ripe, rosehips
are usually red or yellow, and thus attract birds which are fond of
the fleshy portion outside; but the seed-like nuts are too hard and
dry to suit their taste, and are rejected and sown in the vicinity,
where the ripened hips are picked in pieces and eaten. Mice and red
squirrels are also fond of the seed-like nutlets of roses, but seldom
secure them from the bushes. Why, do you ask? Because the prickles
were most likely placed on the rosebushes to prevent this very thing,
and not to annoy the lover of flowers, or to prevent her from cutting
what she needs.

41. The meddlesome crow lends a hand.--"One of the most industrious
and persistent seed-transporting agencies I know of is that
ubiquitous, energetic, rollicking, meddlesome busybody, the crow.
I have seen crows gather by hundreds and have a regular powwow, a
mass convention, where they seemed to discuss measures and appoint
officers. At length they get through, and as they start to fly away
many, if not all, will drop something. I have found these to be acorns,
walnuts, hickory nuts, buckeyes, sycamore balls, sticks, eggshells,
pebbles, etc. As a crow leaves an oak he will pluck an acorn, which
he may carry five miles and light on a beech tree where something
else will attract his attention, when he will drop the acorn and maybe
pluck a pod of beechnuts and fly away somewhere else."--_Prof.
W. B. Barrows_.

The number of seeds distributed by crows is enormous, and consists
of many species, including poison ivy and poison sumac, wild cherry,
dogwood, red cedar, sour gum, and Virginia creeper. The hard,
undigested seeds are mostly expelled from the mouth in pellets, shown
in the illustration, and germinate more promptly than those untouched
by birds.

[Illustration: FIG. 51.--Two views of a pellet of seeds and rubbish
from a crow. From bulletin No. 6, United States Department of
Agriculture, Division of Ornithology and Mammology.]

Bears are very fond of berries, and will scatter the seeds of service
berries, elder berries, chokecherries, raspberries, and
blackberries.

42. Ants distribute some k