394 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTEIBUTION AND 



[Cii. XL. 



hew have tailed to mark the locks ot wool hanging on the 

 thorn-bnslies, wherever tlie sheep pass^ and it is probable that 



the 



wolf or lion never give chase to herbivorons animals 



without being nnconscionslj subservient to this part of the 

 vegetable economy, 



A deer has strayed from the herd when browsing on some 



r 



of his foe. He 



en he is suddenly alarmed by the approach 

 instantly takes to flight, dashing through 

 many a thicket, and swimming across many a river and lake. 

 The seeds of the herbs and shrubs which have adhered to his 

 smoking flanks, and even many a thorny spray, which has 

 been torn ofl*, and has fixed itself in his hairy coat, are 

 brushed off again in other thickets and copses. Even on the 



victim 



many 



he had 



may 



on the ground uninjured, and ready to spring up in a new 



soil. 



The passage 



indeed, of undigested 



seeds throup-h the 



stomachs of animals is one of the most efiicient causes of the 

 dissemination of plants, and is, of all others, perhaps the most 

 likely to be overlooked. Few are ignorant that a portion of 

 the oats eaten by a horse preserve their germinating faculty 

 in the dung. The fact of their being still nutritious is not 

 lost on the sagacious rook. To many, says Linnseus, 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 stomachs of 



animals.'^ 



Some birds of the order Passeres devour the seeds of plants 

 in great quantities, which thej eject again in very distant 

 places, without destroying its faculty of vegetation : thus a 

 flight of larks will fill the cleanest field with a great quantity 

 of various kinds of plants, as the melilot trefoil (Medicago 

 'lupuUna), and others whose seeds are so heavy that the 

 wind is not able to scatter them to any distance.f In Hk© 



^ Linnseus, Amoen. Acad., vol. ii. 



t Amcen. Acad., vol. iv. Essay 7o. 



p. 409. 



8. 



