CHAP. 



43° A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC 



Devon and Cornwall, and have never come upon any indubitable 

 tropical seed-drift. 



On one occasion I examined many of the beaches between 

 Ilfracombe and Padstow with the object of finding tropical seeds 

 but to no purpose. Portions of bark, generally 2 to 4 inches 

 across and much water-worn, together with a quantity of steamer- 

 slag or cinders, often largely composed the stranded drift. No 

 doubt this bark is stripped off by the waves from floating trees 

 which are generally stranded in a bare condition after a long ocean 

 voyage, This is the case with the timber brought in the Oregon 

 drift to Hawaii; and Sernander (p. 117) remarks that bark 

 seldom occurs on the trees washed ashore with the Atlantic drift 

 on the coasts of Scandinavia. Modern marine deposits ou<?ht to 

 contain much bark debris. 



On the beaches in the vicinity of estuaries we find a certain 

 amount of river drift, and amongst it fruits or seeds of Sparganium 

 ramosum, Ins pseudacorus, Alnus glutinosa, Rumex, and many 

 other river-side plants, such as I have mentioned in my paper on 

 the Thames drift {Journ. Linn. Soc. Bot, xxix). Most of them 

 are capable of reproducing the plant, but not on the sandy beach 

 where the waves have stranded them ; and we thus see here one of 

 the limits of the efficacy of currents as seed-dispersers. 



From the labours of Lindman and Norman, the results of which 

 are summed up by Sernander (p. 116) we can learn what are the 

 components of the « Atlantic Drift " on the Scandinavian coast ■ and 

 a strange assortment we here find, in which it is difficult to detect 

 much indication of effective seed dispersal. Besides the seeds of 

 Caesalpinia Bonducella, Entada scandens, and Mucuna urens, 

 familiar to us as occurring in the drift of tropical beaches there is a 

 quantity of vegetable drift hailing sometimes from North' America 

 sometimes from the Canary Islands, and sometimes from the West 

 Indies, mingled with much local drift in which the larch and 

 steamer-slag or cinders predominate. The seed-drift derived from 

 the proper beach-plants of the coast plays a subordinate part 

 though it is stated by Norman and others that seeds and seed- 

 vessels, as the case may be, of Arenaria peploides, Cakile 

 mantima, Convolvulus soldanella, and Lathyrus maritimus, with 

 those of other plants, are also to be found. 



The Mediterranean beach drift, as illustrated by the results of 

 my examination of numerous beaches in Sicily as well as in the 

 islands of Stromboli and Lipari, and of the beach at Cuma, is of 

 a scanty nature. If we eliminate the various evidences of cultiva- 



