When the fruit is ripe, the outer covering all of a sudden splits and curls up with considerable force, acting like a spring and shooting the seeds far over the thicket. [Illustration: [Touch-me-not]] It spreads them far and wide, so they have a better chance to find a place to take root when the time comes. The fruits are so eager to send the seeds on their journey, and so fearful that some harm will come to them, that they snap them away if any one touches the pods. If you jostle these eager plants you will hear the seeds flying in all directions. If you touch a seed-pod it goes off in your fingers. No wonder we call the plants “touch-me-nots”! Some call them “snapweed” or “snappers,” and the botany calls them “impatiens,” because they are so impatient! They have yet another name, “lady’s eardrop,” and I do not know how many more. People must like the pretty things to give them so many names. [Illustration: [Touch-me-not]] EARDROPS. [Illustration: [Eardrop]] [Illustration: [Eardrop]] Eardrops of gold with red rubies beset, Hang from the ears of a dear little maid. “Where did you get them, my darling, my pet?” “Down by the brook you can pick them,” she said. LADY’S SLIPPER. In the garden grows a relative of our jewelweed. It is called the “garden balsam,” and sometimes “lady’s slipper.” Its own home is far-off India. Its flowers are larger than those of the jewelweed and are not yellow, but white or red or pink, and sometimes pink and white spotted. In shape, however, it is very like the jewelweed; it hides its pistil beneath the anthers in the same way and snaps its seeds afar. Its flowers grow double and close to the stalk, and it makes a fine show in the garden in the fall of the year. There is one thing I should like very much to know, and that is, just when and how this Indian balsam and its cousin the North American jewelweed got separated. Way, way back, farther back than the building of the pyramids, these two plants must have had the same ancestors. Now, where did those ancestors live? In India? In America? Somewhere between? And what caused them finally to get so widely separated? Who is going to tell us? For over two hundred and fifty years the Indian balsam has been cultivated as a garden plant, and no doubt this long cultivation has done much to bring about changes. Still, its resemblance to the jewelweed is quite unmistakable, and we cannot doubt the relationship of the two. THE HUMMING BIRD. [Illustration: [Humming Bird]] [Illustration: [Humming Bird]] Flashing in the sunshine, Dashing through the air, Sparkling like a jewel, See him everywhere! Poised before a flower For a moment’s space, Off again like lightning On some headlong chase! [Illustration: [Humming Bird]]