Sketches from Nature. 323 



pond she haply arrives at, possibly she may leave 

 the spawn behind her," an observation now 

 known to be strictly accurate. Herons are not 

 the only birds which are aids to dispersal. 

 Although the feet of birds are generally clean, 

 Darwin in one case removed sixty-one grains, 

 and in another twenty-two grains, of dry argil- 

 laceous earth from the foot of a partridge, and in 

 the earth there was a pebble as large as the seed 

 of a vetch. The same naturalist had sent to him 

 by a friend the leg of a woodcock, with a little 

 cake of dry earth attached to the shank, and 

 weighing only nine grains ; this contained seeds 

 of the toad-rush, which not only germinated but 

 flowered. But perhaps the most interesting 

 case of all was that of a red-legged partridge 

 forwarded by Professor Newton. This had been 

 wounded, and was unable to fly ; and a ball of 

 hard earth adhered to it, weighing six and a half 

 ounces. The earth had been kept for three 

 years, but when broken and watered, and placed 

 under a bell-glass, no fewer than eighty-two 

 plants sprang from it. 



American passenger pigeons are frequently 

 captured in the State of New York with their 

 crops still filled with the undigested grains of 

 rice that, according to Mr. Howard Saunders, 

 must have been taken in the distant fields of 

 Georgia and South Carolina, apparently proving 

 thac the birds had passed over the intervening 



