44 2 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION [Chap. VI 



Letter 337 hawk, lightning, apoplexy, hail, etc.) with seed in its crop, 

 and it would swim ? " No sooner said than done : a pigeon 

 has floated for thirty days in salt water with seeds in its 

 crop, and they have grown splendidly ; and to my great 

 surprise even tares (Leguminosae, so generally killed by 

 sea-water), which the bird had naturally eaten, have grown 

 well. You will say gulls and dog-fish, etc., would eat up the 

 carcase, and so they would 999 times out of a thousand, 

 but one might escape : I have seen dead land-birds in 

 sea-drift. 



Letter 338 Asa Gray to C. Darwin. 1 



Cambridge, Mass., Feb. i6tli, 1857. 



I meant to have replied to your interesting letter of 

 January 1st long before this time, and also that of November 

 24th, which I doubt if I have ever acknowledged. But after 

 getting my school-book, Lessons in Botany, off my hands 

 — it taking up time far beyond what its size would seem to 

 warrant— 1 had to fall hard at work upon a collection of 

 small size from Japan — mostly N. Japan, which I am only just 

 done with. As I expected, the number of species common to 

 N. America is considerably increased in this collection, as also 

 the number of closely representative species in the two, and a 

 pretty considerable number of European species too. I have 

 packed off my MSS. (though I hardly know what will become 

 of it), or I would refer you to some illustrations. The greater 

 part of the identical species (of Japan and N. America) are of 

 those extending to or belonging to N.W. coast of America, 

 but there are several peculiar to Japan and E. U. States : 

 e.g., our Viburnum lantanoides is one of Thunbcrg's species. 

 De Candolle's remarkable case of Phryma, which he so dwells 

 upon, turns out, as Dr. Hooker said it would, to be only one 

 out of a great many cases of the same sort. (Hooker brought 

 Monotropa unifiora, you know, from the Himalayas ; and now, 

 by the way, I have it from almost as far south, i.e., from St. 

 F6e, New Granada). . . . 



Well, I never meant to draw any conclusions at all, and 

 am very sorry that the only one I was beguiled into should 



1 In reply to Darwin's letter given in Life and Letters, II., p. 88. 



