146 MEANS OF DISPEESAL. [Chap. XII. 



have never seen an instance of nutritious seeds passing 



through the intestines of a bird ; but hard seeds of fruit 



pass uninjured through even the digestive organs of a 



turkey. In the course of two months, I picked up in 



my garden 12 kinds of seeds, out of the excrement of 



small birds, and these seemed perfect, and some of 



them, which were tried, germinated. But the following 



fact is more important : the crops of birds do not secrete 



gastric juice, and do not, as 1 know by trial, injure in 



the least the germination of seeds ; now, after a bird 



has found and devoured a large supply of food, it is 



positively asserted that all the grains do not pass into 



the gizzard for twelve or even eighteen hours. A bird 



in tliis interval might easily be blown to the distance 



of 500 miles, and hawks are known to look out for tired 



birds, and the contents of their torn crops might thus 



readily get scattered. Some hawks and owls bolt their 



prey whole, and, after an interval of from twelve to 



twenty hours, disgorge pellets, which, as I know from 



experiments made in the Zoological Gardens, include 



seeds capable of germination. Some seeds of the oat 



wheat, millet, canary, hemp, clover, and beet germinated 



after having been from twelve to twenty-one hours 



in the stomachs of different birds of prey; and two 



seeds of beet grew after having been thus retained 



for two days and fourteen hours. Fresh- water fish, I 



find, eat seeds of many land and water plants ; fish are 



frequently devoured by birds, and thus the seeds might 



be transported from place to place. I forced many 



kinds of seeds into the stomachs of dead fish, and then 



gave their bodies to fisliing-eagles, storks, and pelicans ; 



these birds, after an interval of many hours, either 



rejected the seeds in pellets or passed them in their 



