522 A NATURALIST OX THE "CHALLENGER.''' 



4,000 feet. Similarly a Puffin (Puffinus nugax) nests at the top 

 of the Korovasa Basaga mountain, in Viti Levu Island, Fiji* and 

 in like manner, a Procellaria breeds in the high mountains in 

 Jamaica. 



It seems to me possible that these birds may carry Alpine 

 plants as seeds and spores attached to their feathers from one 

 island to another, for great distances. They make their holes 

 in the ground where it is densely covered with herbage, and 

 often become covered with vegetable mould. The Procellaridce, 

 widely wandering as they are, have probably had a great deal to 

 do with the wide distribution of much of the Antarctic flora. 

 Grisebachf lays stress on the range of the Albatross (Diomedea) 

 from Cape Horn to the Kurile Islands, as possibly accounting 

 for the occurrence of Northern species of plants amongst the 

 Southern flora, and also the wide range of the Antarctic flora. 

 He supposes the seeds, however, to be swallowed by the Alba- 

 tross, with its food, after being washed down into the sea by 

 rivers, and perhaps swallowed by fish. 



When I mentioned the matter of the birds possibly picking 

 up seeds whilst nesting, and so conveying them, to Mr. Darwin 

 in conversation, he at once objected that at nesting time these 

 birds, like all others, do not wander, and do not fly to a fresh 

 nesting place directly after nesting. It seems to me, however, 

 that though this objection is almost fatal to the suggestion, 

 occasionally birds may leave an island with mountain seeds 

 attached, and alight in the higher parts of a distant island from 

 habit. The fact that they do nest amidst the mountain flora, is 

 at all events to be noted. 



With regard to the Albatross, it is to be noted that at Tristan 

 da Cunha these birds nest in the terminal crater, at a height of 

 8,000 feet. Former Albatrosses may have nested in high tro- 

 pical mountains ; the plants are possibly very much older than 

 the present species of Albatrosses. The great Albatross has, on 

 a very few occasions, been found as a straggler, north of the 



* Finsch und Hartlaub, " Ornithologie der Yiti, Samoa, und Tonga 

 Inseln." Halle, 1867. Einleitung, S. XVIII. Peale describes the habit in 

 question of Procellaria rostrata at Tahiti. 



t A Grisebach, " Vegetation der Erde," Bd. II., S. 496. 



