418 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



illustration was published in tHe " Proceedings" for 

 that year. Through the kindness of Mr. P. L. Selater, 

 the indefatigable secretary of the society, I am now 

 enabled to transfer to these pages the original woodcut, 

 and I am the more obliged for the opportunity of doing 

 so, since the specimen itself is no longer in existence. 



The posthumous honours, however, to be paid to this 

 remnant of a " Frenchman" were not to end here. Mr. 

 Newton further requested permission to forward the 

 curiosity to Mr. Darwin, that eminent naturalist, in his 

 "Origin of Species" (pp. 362, 363), having cited an 

 instance in which he had " removed twenty-two grains 

 of dry argillaceous earth from one foot of a partridge," 

 in which earth '' there was a pebble quite as large as the 

 seed of a vetch ;" whilst the above mass of clay, as 

 remarked by Mr. Newton before the Zoological Society, 

 was ^^ enormously greater than the quantity of earth 

 mentioned by Mr. Darwin, and sufficient to hold the 

 germs of a very extensive flora." How fully this suppo- 

 sition was borne out by subsequent investigation will be 

 seen by the following extract from Mr. Darwin's letter to 

 Mr. Newton (March 29th, 1864j, detailing the results 

 of his investigation : — " I ha,ve examined (he says) the 

 partridge's leg; the toes and tarsus were frightfully 

 diseased, enlarged, and indurated. There were no con- 

 centric layers in the ball of earth, but I cannot doubt 

 that it had become slowly aggregated, probably the 

 result of some viscid exudations from the wounded foot. 

 It is remarkable, considering that the ball is three years 

 old, that eighty-two plants have come up from it, 

 twelve being Monocotyledons and seventy Dicotyledons, 

 consisting of at least five different plants, perhaps many 

 more. The bird limping about during the autumn would 

 easily collect many seeds on the viscid surface. I am 

 extremely obhged to you for sending me this interesting 

 specimen." 



