232 The Great World's Farm 



might be the seed in the crop of their victim, still unin- 

 jured. This, indeed, is no mere speculation, for it has 

 been found by experiment that such pellets do contain 

 seeds, such as oats, wheat, hemp, millet, clover, and 

 canary-seeds; all of which may be capable of germina- 

 tion. 



Seeds vary very much as to their power of resisting 

 digestion. Many are, for the most part, quite digested, 

 but there are others which are protected against digestion 

 by a covering so hard, or so tough, that it is a real help 

 to them to be swallowed, as they germinate more readily 

 when this covering has undergone some amount of 

 softening. 



Seeds, for instance, which are swallowed, not for their 

 own sake, but for the sweet flesh surrounding them, are 

 more or less hard, and some stone-like. Even the seeds 

 of elms, firs, and ashes often escape not merely unin- 

 jured, but actually helped by being swallowed; and the 

 same is true, in a much more marked degree, of the 

 stones of the cherry, sloe, raspberry, blackberry, and 

 the seeds of the apple, and the tiny nuts of the straw- 

 berry. 



In some cases birds render a positive service to man 

 also, by swallowing and scattering the seeds of plants 

 which he cultivates. All the present "pimento walks" of 

 Jamaica, as the plantations are called, have been sown by 

 birds; for though the plants can be raised in nurseries in 

 large numbers by careful treatment, the planters are of 

 opinion that the seeds are better prepared by the birds. 

 And why should they incur the trouble and expense of 

 this "careful treatment," when the birds do all that is 

 necessary.? 



I 



