1911] Fernald,— Expedition to Newfoundland 145 
“As the above observations are made by so careful and eminent 
an investigator, I must consequently believe that birds at least very 
seldom carry seeds and other larger reproductive organs, and small 
plants, across great distances, and the indisputable evidences of birds 
carrying seeds either in them or adhering to them mentioned in books 
evidently apply to birds shot at or not far from, their daily haunts, 
and not to such as have just made a long journey. Winge also has 
observed a great many instances of birds carrying seeds across short 
distances." ! 
In view of the well known character of the work of Andersen and 
of Winge and the fact that it is confidently relied upon by so dis- 
tinguished an advocate of the land-bridge theory as Ostenfeld and by 
the illustrious opponent of that theory, Warming, we can do no better 
than to acquiesce in their conclusion, that some method other than 
transportation by birds is required to account for the vascular flora 
of the Faeróes; and to conclude that in the case of the Newfoundland 
vascular plants (or at least of most of them) we must also seek a 
better explanation. 
OCEAN CuRRENTS. The most pronounced of the ocean-currents 
which skirt the eastern coast of North America are of course the 
Gulf Stream which as it drifts eastward off the coast of eastern 
New England, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland is far out to sea, and 
the Labrador Current which, coming from the North, is the shoreward 
current along the outer coast of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and 
eastern New England. That the plants of New Jersey, coastwise 
New England and southern Nova Scotia could not reach Newfound- 
land by means of the south-flowing shoreward Labrador current needs 
no argument; and that the Gulf Stream, far offshore and washing no 
part of our coast north of the West Indies would be ineffective is per- 
fectly obvious. Nor is Cabot Strait, the water separating Newfound- 
land from Cape Breton, adapted to transport seeds from the latter to 
the former region for, as shown by W. B. Dawson, the strong trend 
of the currents on the western or Nova Scotia side of this Strait is 
from the Gulf of St. Lawrence out to the open Atlantic; but on the 
eastern or Newfoundland side from the Atlantic into the Gulf.! And 
the very meagre representation in Newfoundland of the character- 
istic Canadian plants (27 species out of more than 367) which 
Warming, Botany of the FaerGes, ii. 676, 677 (1903). 
