MoseleV. 23 



many occur on the islands and some of the islands have 

 no places which such birds frequent. 



Men who have often crossed the ice in winter say it 

 would be impossible for seeds to be blown along on 

 the ice all the w^ay to the islands. Not only is the ice 

 apt to be rough in many places, but it is crossed by 

 numerous drifts of snow and is always intersected by 

 long cracks in which seeds would lodge. Cakes of 

 floating ice might transport seeds some distance, but 

 would usually be prevented from landing them on 

 distant shores by* other ice getting in the way, and the 

 freezing of the seeds to the floating ice would prevent 

 them from blowing off". However, some littoral 

 species may have reached the islands in this way. In 

 those instances in which animals have succeeded in 

 swimming so far, any seeds that were clinging to their 

 hair at the start would probably be washed off" on the 

 way. Yet many species that rely upon mammals for 

 transportation from place to place are there and give 

 evidence of having been there longer than civilized man. 

 These plants mature their seeds from four to six months 

 before the ice would permit an animal to cross to the 

 islands, and some of them have lost all their seeds by 

 that time. 



The following list gives the names of some of the 

 plants on the islands whose seeds are adapted to 

 transportation in the hair of animals : Desmodiutn 

 canescens, Desmodium paniculatum, Agrimonia eupa- 

 toria, Geum album, Geum virginianum, Circaea lute- 

 tiana, Osmorrhiza brevistylis, Osmorrhiza longistylis, 

 Sanicula marylandica, Sanicula marylandica var. 

 canadensis, Galium aparine, Galium boreale, Galium 

 circaezans, Galium triBorum, Coreopsis trichosperma 

 var, tenuiloba, Ecbinospermum virginicum. 



Colonel James Smith in the narrative of his cap- 

 tivity with the Indians, 1755-59, says: "These islands 

 are but seldom visited ; because early in the spring and 



