S34 MEANS OF DISPERSAL. Cuap. XI. 



iiicnls iimdc in the Zoological Gardens, include seeds capable of 

 genniiiiit ion. Some seeds of the oat, -wheat, millet, canary, hemp, 

 clover, and beet, germinated after ha\nng 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 d;iys and fourteen hours. Fresh-water fisli, I find, eat 

 seeds of many land and water plants : fish are frequently de- 

 voured by birds, and thus the seeds might Ije transported fi-om 

 place to place. I forced many kinds of seeds into the stomachs 

 of dead fish, and then gave their bodies to fishing-eagles, storks, 

 and pelicans ; these birds, after an interval of many hours, either 

 rejected the seeds in pellets or passed them in their excre- 

 ment ; and several of these seeds retained the power of ger- 

 mination. Certain seeds, however, were always killed by this 

 process. 



Locusts are sometimes blown to great distances from the 

 land; I myself caught one 370 miles from the coast of Africa, 

 and have heard of others caught at greater distances. The 

 Kev. R. T. Lowe infonns Sir C. Lyell that, in November, 1844, 

 swarms of locusts visited the island of Madeira. They were in 

 countless numbers, as thick as the fiakes of snow in the heavi- 

 est snow-storm, and extended upward as far as could be seen 

 with a telescope. During two or "three days they slowly ca- 

 reered round in the air in an immense ellipse, at least five or 

 six miles in diameter, and at night alighted on the taller trees, 

 which were completely coated with them. They then disap- 

 peared over the sea, as suddenly as they had appeared, and 

 have not since visited the island. Now, in parts of Natal it is 

 believed by some of the farmers, thougli on quite insufficient 

 evidence, that injurious seeds are introduced into their grass- 

 land in the dung left by the great fiights of locusts which often 

 visit that country. In consequence of this belief, Mr. Weale 

 sent me in a letter a small jiacket of the dried pellets, out of 

 which I extracted imder the microscope several seeds, and 

 raised from them seven gi-ass-i)lants, belonging to two spe- 

 cies, in two genera. Hence a swarm of locusts, such as that 

 which visited Madeira, might readily be the means of introdu- 

 cing several kinds of plants into an island lying far from the 

 main-land. 



Although the beaks and fix-t of birds are generally clean, 

 earth sometimes adheres to them : in one easel removed sixty- 

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

 laceous earth from one foot of a partridge, and in the earth 



