WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 



exist : as an illustration we may point to such plants as 

 the thistle, the seed of which is provided with a most 

 beautiful and perfect floating apparatus, which causes it 

 to be wafted by the slightest current of air for miles 

 across the country, aye, even to be borne by the wind 

 beyond the sea, which, rapidly becoming disseminated 

 over the earth, are the means of attracting and of inducing 

 to migrate the creatures that live upon their seed. 



A singular confirmation of this may be found in the 

 partially changed habits of the common goldfinch. Since 

 the formation in this country of railways the thistles have 

 increased on the uncultivated banks or sides of the 

 various cuttings on the different lines, and goldfinches, as 

 they feed greatly upon thistle seed, have congregated in 

 the localities where that weed abounds, and have become 

 comparatively rare in places where formerly they were 

 numerous. 



The introduction and cultivation of a particular kind 

 of grain or fruit into a country will tend to attract some 

 of the wild animals from the surrounding forest to the 

 cultivated ground, and to increase ■their numbers by the 

 food so readily obtained. An instance of this kind is 

 causing the cultivators of the grape in Australia much 

 trouble, as since the introduction of the vine to that 

 country, the large fruit-eating bats (Pteropus polioccphalus) 

 have committed much damage. Collecting in large 

 numbers after dark, they devour the grapes in prodigious 

 quantities, and as their numbers appear on the increase, 

 it is doubtful whether the cultivation of the grape can be 

 continued with any prospect of success in Australia. It 

 is said that the authorities in Australia were at one time 

 in great fear of the escape of lions, tigers, or other large 

 carnivora from travelling collections, for should these 

 formidable creatures only obtain a footing, the abundance 



232 



