404 THE BIOLOGY OF BIRDS 



hundreds of seedlings of an ally of our mistletoe (the tropical 

 Loranthus loniceroides) appear where birds have rubbed the 

 seeds from their bills. On the wire, of course, their growth 

 soon comes to an end, but the case is a pretty demonstration 

 of the efficacy of this means of seed distribution and attach- 

 ment. Seeds may occasionally be eaten by the bird and 

 voided uninjured on a branch, but this is certainly of 

 minor importance in establishing the plant" (Skene, 1921, 



P-32). 



In some cases the linkage is more at random than in 

 the instance of thrush and mistletoe ; yet the results are of 

 much practical importance. A bird often gathers clodlets 

 of earth on its wet feet, and these may contain seeds of 

 plants and germs of animals, which may be washed off 

 again at some distant place. Thus small crustaceans and 

 the like are carried from pool to pool — a fact which is part 

 of the explanation of the uniformity of the minute fauna 

 in widely separated basins. Cases are known where a 

 small freshwater bivalve (Sphasrium) has clinched its 

 valves on a bird's toe and been transported. 



In the "Origin of Species," Darwin gives many examples 

 of the scattering of seeds by fruit-eating birds which often 

 digest the soft parts without injury to the more resistant 

 seeds which pass out of the food-canal none the worse, 

 but he attached much importance to the clodlets on the 

 feet. " The leg of a woodcock was sent to me by a friend, 

 vdth a little cake of dry earth attached to the shank, weighing 

 only nine grains ; and this contained a seed of the toad- 

 rush (Juncus bufoniiis) which germinated and flowered. 

 . . . Professor Newton sent me the leg of a red-legged 

 partridge {Caccahis rufa) which had been wounded and could 

 not fly, with a ball of earth adhering to it, and weighing six 

 and a half ounces. The earth had been kept for three years, 

 but when broken, watered, and placed under a bell glass, 

 no less than 82 plants sprung from it ; these consisted of 

 12 monocotyledons, including the common oat, and at least 

 one kind of grass, and of 70 dicotyledons, which consisted, 

 judging from the young leaves, of at least three distinct 



