566 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 



tated at its source. Thus the southern shores of the Baltic are visited by seeds which 

 grew in the interior of Germany, and the western shores of the Atlantic by seeds that 

 have been generated in the interior of America." The seeds of several terrestrial species 

 are enveloped with a mucous matter, by which they are preserved for a long time from 

 the injurious influence of the ocean, or some other peculiarity of structure or accidental 

 circumstance affords protection, so that they are capable of germinating after a lengthened 

 immersion in the briny deep. The fruit of the cashew-nut, Anacardium occidentals, 

 which grows in Jamaica, has been drifted by the gulf stream across the Atlantic to the 

 western coast of Scotland, in such a condition as to have been capable of re-production in 

 a favourable soil and climate. By the same current the Lenticula marina, or sargasso, 

 a bean common to the same locality, arrives at the Orkney Islands and the coast of 

 Ireland ; and an instance is recorded of the Guilandina Bonduc, or nicker tree, one of the 

 tribe of Leguminosce, having been raised from a seed which had accomplished the Atlantic 

 passage. In a collection of plants gathered from the neighbourhood of the river Zaire, 

 on the west coast of Africa, about 6 south latitude, Mr. Brown found thirteen species 

 that are met with on the opposite shores of Guiana and Brazil. These species were only 

 found towards the lower part of the river, where they bear but a small proportion to the 

 whole vegetation ; and, as they were chiefly such as produce seeds capable of retaining 

 their vitality during a long immersion in the waters of the ocean, it was inferred from 

 these circumstances, that they had been drifted in the intertropical seas from a Trans- 

 Atlantic to an African site. 



Animals, of various tribes, contribute to the dissemination of vegetable productions. 

 Nature has expressly provided the seeds of several kinds of plants with an apparatus of 

 barbs and hooks for catching hold of the wool and hair of quadrupeds, and the feathers of 

 birds, in whose locomotion they participate. Fifty genera thus constituted are enume- 

 rated by Linnasus, among which the burdock, teasel, and woodruff are obvious examples ; 

 and such seeds are widely dispersed by animals of the sheep and goat kinds, with the ox, 

 horse, camel, deer, and buffalo, which at certain seasons are prone to rub themselves 

 against the trees and shrubs. " A deer," observes Mr. Lyell, " has strayed from the 

 herd when browsing on some rich pasture, when he is suddenly alarmed by the approach 

 of his foe. He instantly plunges through many a thicket, and swims through many a 

 river and lake. The seeds of the herbs and shrubs adhere to his smoking flanks, and are 

 washed off again by the streams. The thorny spray is torn off, and fixes itself in his 

 hairy coat, until brushed off again in other thickets and copses. Even on the spot where 

 the victim is devoured, many of the seeds which he had swallowed immediately before the 

 pursuit may be left on the ground uninjured." Some naturalists have deemed the latter 

 statement questionable, supposing that seeds and fruit cannot escape being comminuted 

 and destroyed in their passage through the stomach ; but a variety of well-attested facts 

 proves the contrary, of which the sagacious rook is aware, and hence haunts the exuvia3 

 of animals. Linnaeus observes, that to many it seems extraordinary, and something of a 

 prodigy, that when a field is well tilled, and sown with the best wheat, it frequently 

 produces darnel, or the wild oat, especially if it be manured with new dung : they do not 

 consider that the fertility of the smaller seeds is not destroyed in the ventricles of animals. 

 Birds especially, as the linnet, blackbird, and thrush, after feeding too rapaciously upon 

 berries, are known to part with them in an undigested state. It is not for the kernel or 

 seed that birds swallow the haw and the elderberry, but for their pulp ; and many have 

 their organs so constructed that the stone is ejected without injury. The seeds of the 

 misletoe and juniper, it is well known, are thus dispersed and planted by birds; and 

 acorns taken from the stomach of wood-pigeons have so far preserved their vitality as to 

 spring up into healthy saplings, upon being sown, equal to the oaks grown in the usual 



