. Sharp eyes; a rambler's calendar of fifty-two weeks among insects, birds and flowers; . ennants of the witch-hazel, coil-ed for weeks within their patient buds, are now swungout from thousands of gray twigs in the copses, andthe underwoods are lit up with the yellow halo fromtheir myriads of fringy petals. These luminous blossoms are very well known tomost dwellers in the country, but there is somethingelse going on there among the twigs which few observ-ers have suspected. It is a mischievous haunt out thereamong the witch-hazels about this time. I shall neverforget the caper it played upon
. Sharp eyes; a rambler's calendar of fifty-two weeks among insects, birds and flowers; . ennants of the witch-hazel, coil-ed for weeks within their patient buds, are now swungout from thousands of gray twigs in the copses, andthe underwoods are lit up with the yellow halo fromtheir myriads of fringy petals. These luminous blossoms are very well known tomost dwellers in the country, but there is somethingelse going on there among the twigs which few observ-ers have suspected. It is a mischievous haunt out thereamong the witch-hazels about this time. I shall neverforget the caper it played upon me years ago. I had been attracted by a bush which showed an un- ^^ THE WITCH-HAZEL BOMBARDMENT 20 ■ usual profusion of bloom, and while standing close be-side it in admiration I was suddenly stung on the cheekby some missile, and the next instant shot in the eyeby another, the mysterious marksman having apparentlylet off both barrels of vhis little gun directlyin my face. I soon discoveredhim — an army ofthem in fact, a saucy «.legion — all grinningwith open mouths and ^ ~^^.. white teeth exposed, and their double-barrelled gunsloaded to the muzzle, and ready to shoot whenever thewhim should take them. These little sharp-shooters I have shown in my illus-tration. They are the double-barrelled guns of thewitch-hazel—the ripe pods of last years flowers—no\r 204 SHARP EYES opening everywhere in the woods among the yellowblossoms. Each pod contains two long black shiningseeds of bony hardness. The pod splits in half, expos-ing the two white-tipped seeds. The edges of thehorny cells contract against the sides of the seed, andfinally expel it with surprising force, sometimes to thedistance of over forty feet. If we sit quiet on a sunnyday in a witch-hazel copse we may hear the dry leavesrattle with the continual bombardment. A branch ofthe unopened pods brought home and placed in thevase upon the mantel will afford considerable amuse-ment as the seeds rattle about the ro
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
