DISSEMINATION AND LEAF REFLEXION OF YUCCA. 97 
counted. One seed made the passage of the alimentary 
canal and was evacuated in fifteen minutes after the first 
seeds were swallowed. At the end of an hour all of the 
seeds which were swallowed had been evacuated. The 
next day I gave the bird fifteen aloifolia seeds from my F 
finger at one feeding. In half an hour thirteen of these 
had been evacuated and the others were evacuated before 
the end of the hour. 
I next gave the bird an entire fruit and watched him 
pick off portions of the pulp, occasionally getting a seed. 
The cage previous to this had been thoroughly cleaned. 
During about four hours, the time he was given access to 
the fruit, he ate and evacuated fifty-one seeds. 
All of the details of the feeding were watched many 
times with this tame bird and the important features of the 
feeding, snapping and twitching the seeds, etc., were found 
to correspond entirely with what had been observed in the 
field. 2 
The seeds which were evacuated were apparently in good 
condition, but to surely determine this a number of them 
were planted. <A very fair percentage of these germinated 
and formed healthy young plants. 
During the fall and winter, from November to February, 
when the aloifolia fruits are ripening in greatest abundance 
and are suitable, they apparently form the main food of 
the mocking birds, judging from the frequency with which 
one observes them feeding on the alotfolia fruits, and from 
their excrement at this season of the year. In early fall, 
during September and October, many alozfolia fruits ripen, 
but at this season of the year the poke berry (Phytolacca 
decandra) and the wild and cultivated persimmons are 
conspicuous rivals as mocking bird food. By the middle of 
November. these are principally gone, however, or remain 
as dried fragments. The fruits of Duranta Plumieri 
Jacq. and Melia Azederach L. play some part in supplying. 
food for the mocking bird in late fall and winter. 
While the fruits of aloifolia are almost always more or 
7 
