SPRING MIGRATIONS OF CANADA GEESE. 117 



plants. This is equal to a -seed for every six grains 

 of mud." * 



These curious facts will in a measure explain how 

 plant life at least is started upon a desert island which 

 has risen from beneath the waves; moreover in the 

 crops and droppings of birds we have another source from 

 which abundant supplies of seed may be transplanted 

 across wide stretches of ocean, and deposited upon islands, 

 in what is often the best condition for rapid germination. 



For instance, during the great spring migrations of 

 the Canada geese (Brenta Canadensis) crossing New 

 Brunswick about the middle of March, on their way 

 to their nesting grounds in the polar regions, it ap- 

 pears not to be an uncommon circumstance to find 

 " grains of rice and maize in their crops, showing that 

 they must have flown many hundreds of miles in a 

 single night, " after feeding upon these seeds in places 

 where they are produced, f Now rice is probably 

 carried from as far south as the Carolinas, where it 

 is in many places a staple grain ; this therefore presents 

 a wonderful instance of the great distances seeds may 

 be carried by birds; and from the circumstance of its 

 being still found in the crop, there can be little doubt that 

 its vitality would be uninjured, especially as both rice and 

 maize are hard seeds. At the period of the year to which 

 we refer the ice is still generally thick upon the greater 

 part of the New Brunswick waters, and these geese, 

 Mr. Rowan, an intelligent an careful observer, informs 

 us, are generally shot at that time, from screens, or 

 "hides," erected upon the ice." 



* Island Life, by Alfred R. Wallace, 1880, p. 250. 

 f The Emigrant and Sportsman in Canada, Experiences of an Old 

 Settler, by John J. Rowan, 1876, p. 117. 

 Ibid., p. 117. 



