248 THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 



brated plants throughout France. Other birds by 

 the same means propagate in their turn a great 

 number of plants. Travellers tell us, that when the 

 Dutch had destroyed the nutmeg-trees in many of 

 their East Indian islands in order to enhance the val- 

 ue of their nutmeg plantations in Ceylon, a variety of 

 pigeons, which are particularly fond of these fruits, 

 soon repeopled the localities with nutmeg-trees almost 

 in every place where they had been apparently extir- 

 pated by the barbarism of the Netherlander. 



Even man is forced by Nature to do duty as an 

 agent in disseminating plants. His vessels and cara- 

 vans, traversing oceans and deserts, carry unconscious- 

 ly seeds and plants and spread them abroad in new 

 countries which he thus prepares, in blind obedience 

 to higher powers, for his own future use. 



