Others may fall into the water, and float to distant shores. The cocoanut, for example, has been carried in this way for hundreds of miles. Its outer covering protects the seed from being soaked or hurt by water; and when at last it is washed upon some distant shore, it sends up a tall cocoanut tree. [Illustration: Decoration] SOME STRANGE STORIES When I began to tell you children about the different ways in which plants send their young out into the world, I had no idea that I should take so much time, and cover so many pages with the subject. And now I realize that I have not told you one half, or one quarter, of all there is to tell. You have learned that seeds are scattered abroad by animals that eat the bright cases in which they are packed, and by animals into whose hair or clothing they manage to fasten themselves. You know that sometimes seeds are blown through the air by means of silky sails to which they are fastened, or else by their little wings. You discovered that certain plants actually pushed their young from their cozy homes in no gentle fashion, much as a mother bird shoves her timid little ones from the edge of the nest. And in the last chapter you read that occasionally seeds were floated by water to distant shores. Now, these are the chief ways in which plants contrive to dispose of their seeds; but they are not the only ways. Before leaving the subject altogether, I will mention a few plants which use other contrivances. [Illustration: FIG. 79] This picture (Fig. 79) shows you the fruit of the poppy. Many of you know it well. In the fall you find in the garden these pretty seedboxes. They answer famously as pepper pots, if one chances to be playing house in the orchard. Just below the top of the poppy seedbox the picture shows you a circle of little openings; and inside the seedbox are many poppy seeds (Fig. 80). But how can seeds get out of these openings, do you suppose? If they were lower down, it would be an easy matter for the seeds to drop out, right on the ground. But perhaps it is well that this cannot happen. Did such a quantity of seeds fall upon one small bit of earth, they would have a poor chance for life. Well, then, you ask, must they wait patiently in the seedbox till some child comes along and pulls it off for a pepper pot? [Illustration: FIG. 80] No, they are not obliged to wait always for you children. This is fortunate for the poppy plants that are so unlucky as to live in lonely gardens where no children ever play. Then what _does_ happen? If you will go out into the garden the next windy fall day, you will see for yourselves. You will see the tall poppy plants swaying to and fro with every gust of wind; and you will see how the seedboxes are tossed from side to side, and that every now and then a very violent toss sends the little seeds tumbling head over heels out of the little openings just as effectively as if the wind too were playing house and using them as pepper pots.