The Romance of Plant Life: Interesting Descriptions of the Strange and Curious in the Plant WorldElliot, G. F. Scott (George Francis Scott)
Science
The Romance of Plant Life: Interesting Descriptions of the Strange and Curious in the Plant World
Elliot, G. F. Scott (George Francis Scott)
Plants
But it is not only birds which eat fleshy fruits and seeds. Even the
tiny, industrious ant drags about seeds of certain plants. Sometimes
they gather up corn or grasses, such as ant-rice, and store them
for use in winter. They even bite off the growing root to prevent
the seeds germinating and spoiling. Occasionally they seem to carry
the seeds by accident, as, for example, those of the cow-wheat and
a few others which resemble their cocoons in size, colour, and
form. In other cases there is a little fleshy excrescence on the
seed which they are fond of eating. Cyclamen, snowdrop, violet, and
periwinkle seeds are supposed to be carried in this way. Many animals
occasionally or regularly eat fruits. There are, for instance,
the flying-foxes or fruit-eating bats of Madagascar and tropical
countries, which may be seen hanging from the upper branches of
trees by their toes, with their heads tucked away under their wings.
When disturbed a little fox-like head appears, and after much
chattering, scolding, and expostulation, the creature unhooks itself
and flies away with a strong flight not unlike that of a crow. Horses
are occasionally fed on peaches in Chile. Rats eat the coffee cherry,
and do a great deal of harm in coffee plantations.
In Cashmir the mulberry and other fruit trees are sometimes visited
by sportsmen, who often find bears feeding on the fruits. Pigs, of
course, eat all sorts of fruit, and several other mammals do the
same, but it is especially monkeys that live chiefly on fruit. They
plunder the banana plantations, and in South Africa melon-patches
require to be most carefully watched to prevent baboons from
destroying them.
It is said that the baboons watch the plantations from a distance,
and will only come down if they think no one is there: so five people
walk to the patch, and while four go away again, one of them remains
in hiding to shoot the baboons, who cannot tell the difference
between four and five.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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