MULTUM E PARVO. 



persons, counting incessantly from the creation 

 till now, would not have enumerated, though 

 they worked at the rate of a million a- week ! yet 

 it is calculated that the area occupied by this 

 "green water" in the Greenland Sea is not less 

 than 20,000 square miles. What a union of the 

 small and the great is here I 



It is little suspected by many how largely small 

 seed-eating animals, and especially birds, con- 

 tribute to the clothing of the earth with its varied 

 vegetable riches. Peculiar provision is made in 

 many cases for the dissemination of seeds, in their 

 own structure, of which the pappus of the dande- 

 lion and the adhesive hooks of the burdock are 

 examples; but this is largely effected also in the 

 stomachs of birds, the seed being often discharged 

 not only uninjured, but made more ready to ger- 

 minate by the heat and maceration to which it 

 has been subjected. "From trivial causes spring 

 mighty effects:" and the motto has been illus- 

 trated by a close observer from this same subject. 

 "Doubtless many of our most richly wooded land- 

 scapes owe much of their timber to the agency 

 of quadrupeds and birds. Linnets, goldfinches, 

 thrushes, goldcrests, &c, feed on the seeds of elms, 

 firs, and ashes, and carry them away to hedge- 

 rows, where, fostered and protected by bush and 

 bramble, they spring up and become luxuriant 

 trees. Many noble oaks have been planted by the 

 squirrel, who unconsciously yields no inconsider- 

 able boon to the domain he infests. Towards 

 autumn this provident little animal mounts the 

 branches of oak-trees, strips off the acorns and 

 buries them in the earth, as a supply of food 

 against the severities of winter. He is most 

 probably not gifted with a memory of sufficient 

 retention to enable him to find every one he 

 103 



