[Illustration: FIG. 103] We read that these long-beaked fruits bob about with every breath of wind in a fashion that gives the tree a still stranger look than on a day when the air is not stirring. Picture a pear tree from every pear of which the long stem of a baby pear tree protrudes. Would you not be eager to find one of these pears and cut it open, and see what sort of a baby plant it must be that could send out such a great stem? But perhaps the strangest part of the story is yet to come. At last all of these great beaks fall away from the fruit; and from the broken top of each grows a little bud, such as you see in the picture (Fig. 104). When this heavy beak falls upon the muddy ground below, its pointed end strikes first, and so bores into the earth. [Illustration: FIG. 104] Even if it happens to fall into the water, it does this with so much force that it will pierce its way to the depth of eighteen or twenty inches, and yet remain standing erect when it strikes bottom, where it sends out a root. When it has secured a good hold, the little bud unfolds into four leaves. Above these grow larger, shining leaves; and soon the ground beneath an old mangrove tree is covered with these daring little adventurers. [Illustration: Decoration] A HUMPBACKED PLANT BABY Now let us pause for a moment, and try to recall a little of what we have learned since school opened. We learned that the fruit of a plant is the part which holds its seed, and that there are many different kinds of fruits; that the burr of the burdock, the pod of the milkweed, the puff of the dandelion, are fruits, as well as the apple and the pear, the acorn and the walnut. We learned that the chief importance of these fruits lies in the fact just mentioned, that they hold the seeds of the plants. Then we learned something about the many different kinds of seeds, and of how these seeds managed to become separated from the parent plant, and to get a start in life. Next we read of the baby plant which lies hidden within every perfect seed. We learned how this is kept safe and warm, and supplied with food, and how at last it finds its way out of the seed shell into the world. If you have been using this book in the right way, not only have you read about these things, but you have seen them with your own eyes. Some of the fruits you have tasted, and others you have handled. You have examined the silky sails of the seeds which float through the air, and the hooks and claws of those little tramps that manage to steal free rides. And some seeds you have planted. These you have watched day by day, and you have seen that the baby plants burst their seed shells much as a chick bursts its eggshell.