Seed-Carriers 221 



that dry soil cannot. From about a breakfast-cupful of 

 mud taken under the water from the edge of a small 

 pond, Mr. Darwin succeeded in raising five hundred and 

 thirty-seven plants. 



Now, the birds which frequent bogs and marshes and 

 other muddy places are also the very birds which wander 

 most, the migrants in fact, chief among which, for the 

 wide extent of its journeyings, is the woodcock; for there 

 is hardly any island, however remote, but the woodcock 

 finds its way thither, and no doubt it has carried in its 

 time many a seed, which has been dropped again in soil as 

 muddy as that from which it was taken, and has therefore 

 had a good chance of establishing itself. 



But though birds convey seeds both in their feathers 

 and in the mud on their feet, they no doubt convey many 

 more in their crops. There is no gastric juice or anything 

 else in the crop to injure the seeds in any way, and when 

 a large supply of food has been taken, the grains do not 

 all pass mto the gizzard for twelve, or even eighteen, 

 hours, in the course of which time a good deal might 

 happen. Birds, for example, are occasionally blown the 

 whole way across the Atlantic, the wind carrying them on 

 at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour; and they might 

 well, therefore, be carried five hundred miles before all 

 the grain had passed out of their crop, if they had just 

 had a full meal. 



Supposing them to be blown over land instead of over 

 sea, or to reach land after a few hours, they might then 

 be pounced on by the hawks, who are always on the look- 

 out for weary travelers. These, like the owls, bolt their 

 prey whole, and after some hours disgorge pellets of 

 feathers and other undesirable matter, among which 



