EED-LEGGED PAETKIDGE. 



417 



liad tlie nail torn off level with the edge of tlie mass 

 itself. From the upper part protruded a short bit of 

 bent or straw, and tliis being entangled round the foot 

 had probably collected the soil by degrees, which had 

 hardened at night with the frost. I can only imagine 

 that the unfortunate bird, which was half starved when 

 taken, had been wounded in the leg, and was thus 

 unable to endure the pam of removing the earth when 



it first began to attach itself. On subsequently showing 

 the limb, and its accumulations, to my friend Mr. 

 Newton, it struck him, at once, as a singular confirma- 

 tion of Mr. Darwin's theory of the transportation of the 

 seeds of plants by adhesion to the beaks and feet of 

 birds, and, as such, he exhibited and described it at a 

 meeting of the Zoological Society, on the 21st day of 

 April, 1863, a notice of which, with a very accurate 

 3h 



