Sketches from Nature. 321 



with the marvellous methods which nature adopts 

 for the dispersal of her types. If the seeds of 

 forest trees were merely shed to the ground 

 immediately beneath, they would be in an 

 environment precisely the least likely to further 

 the reproduction of their kind. Instead of this, 

 many of the seeds of forest trees are furnished 

 with wings, an adaptation which allows them to 

 be easily wafted by the wind, and thus fits them 

 for wide dispersal. It is only by possessing some 

 such advantage as this that certain species could 

 survive at all. It is true that acorns and other 

 kindred fruits do not possess this advantage, but 

 then they are largely fed upon by birds, and 

 birds, as will presently be shown, are an ad- 

 mirable means of dispersal. The crop of a 

 wood-pigeon, which burst when the bird fell to 

 the ground when shot, was found to contain 

 sixty-seven acorns, besides a number of beech 

 mast and leaves of clover. In this connection 

 imagine the possible rate of multiplication which 

 would follow the accidental dissemination of a 

 single head of red poppy. If left undisturbed 

 it would, under ordinarily favourable circum- 

 tances, ripen forty thousand seeds, each capable 

 of producing a successor. It has been stated 

 by a competent authority that one red poppy 

 could produce plants enough in less than seven 

 years to occupy every inch of the thirty and odd 

 million acres of the United Kingdom. 



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