GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS. 567 



way. The soft covering of the nutmeg, known to us by the name of mace, affords a 

 favourite repast at certain seasons to some species of the arboreal pigeons of the Indian 

 archipelago. The nutmeg itself, which is generally swallowed with the whole of its 

 pulpy covering, passes uninjured through the digestive organs of the bird, and is thus 

 dispersed throughout the group of the Moluccas, and the adjacent islands. An example 

 of a different way in which animals contribute to the dispersion of plants, may be taken 

 from the habits of the common squirrel, led by instinct to lay up a store of food for the 

 winter, as is the case with several other species. In the woods belonging to the Duke of 

 Beaufort, near Troy House, Monmouthshire, a squirrel was observed sitting very com- 

 posedly upon the ground. In a few seconds he darted like an arrow to the top of a tree, 

 and brought down an acorn, which was carefully deposited in the ground. The same 

 process was repeated several times, the different acorns being laid up in different holes. 

 We may suppose the place of deposition, in the case of some, to escape the memory of 

 the little animal, upon the return of winter, which germinate, and ultimately supply the 

 place of the parent tree. 



The three agencies noticed compose a machinery competent to effect the wide dissemi- 

 nation of plants, nor is it extravagant to suppose their combined action resulting in an 

 intermingling of the productions of far distant botanical habitations. Tracing the operation 

 of the causes in connection, Mr. Lyell imagines a tempestuous wind, after bearing the 

 seeds of a plant many miles through the air, delivering them up to the ocean. Its 

 currents then may drift them to the shore of some remote continent, where, upon the fall 

 of the tide, they are deposited ; and finally, some of the land-birds may thence convey 

 them over hill and dale to their retreat, where, from their exuviae they germinate, and 

 clothe the spot with a new vegetation. To the preceding causes of dispersion we have 

 now to add the agency of man, who by design, and involuntarily, has largely contributed to 

 the diffusion of vegetable productions. 



For the purposes of food, luxury, ornament, and use in the arts of life, an immense 

 number of plants have been transported by the human race in their migration to climates, 

 soils, and situations, where they are not indigenous. The cereal vegetables, so important 

 to our sustenance, are importations into Europe, and have from thence been taken by its 

 inhabitants to various parts of the globe which they have colonised. The native country 

 of these grasses has escaped remembrance, and can never now be ascertained, though 

 Bruce states that he found the oat wild in Abyssinia, while other travellers have men- 

 tioned barley as growing wild on the banks of the Semara in Tartary, and wheat in hilly 

 situations in the East Indies. But whether these valuable grains came originally from 

 those countries, and when and how they migrated, are points equally unknown. The 

 New World received them from the Old at the hands of the Spaniards. One of the 

 servants of Cortes found among the rice which served to support his troops three or four 

 grains of wheat, which were sown in Mexico, probably, about the year 1530. The 

 name of the person who carried the first grains to Lima has been preserved a Spanish 

 lady, Maria d' Escobar. Upon being sown, their produce was distributed for three years 

 among the colonists, each receiving twenty or thirty seeds. At Quito, the first European 

 corn was sown near the convent of St. Francis, by Father Jose Rixi, a native of Flanders ; 

 and the monks still show, as a precious relic, the earthen vessel in which the original 

 wheat came there. " Why," asks Humboldt, " have not men preserved everywhere the 

 names of those who, in place of ravaging the earth, have enriched it with plants useful to 

 the human race ?" In return, the Old World has received the potato from the New, which 

 found its way to England from North America ; but previously it had been brought to 

 Spain from the southern part of the continent, where Humboldt searched in vain to 

 discover it in a wild condition, and declares its native country to be unknown. The 



