GENERAL AUAriATlOXS 339 



peccaries, deer, cattle, horses, etc., and wlieu .such animals are 

 startled while feeding and scamper away, two results, useful 

 to the species whose fruit they are feedin-,^ upon, follow. As 

 the acorns, chestnuts, etc., usually lie thickly un the ground, 

 some will be driven or kicked along wiih the herd; an<l this 

 being repeated many times during a season and year after 

 year, a number of seeds are scattered Ixyond the limits of the 

 j^arent trees. By this process seeds will often reach places 

 they would not attain by ordinary means, and may thus be 

 effective in extending the range of the species. It would also 

 often happen that seeds would be trodden into soft or wet 

 ground and thus be actually planted by the devouring animals; 

 and being in this case placed out of sight till the herds had 

 left the district would have a better chance of cominjr to 

 maturity. 



XoAv one such success in a year would more than compensate 

 to the species for millions of seeds devoured, and it would 

 therefore be beneficial to a species to produce nuts or seeds of 

 large size and in great quantities in order to attract numbers 

 of mammals to feed on them. This is quite in accordance 

 with nature's methods in other cases, as Darwin has shown in 

 the case of pollen. The very curious fact of the I5razil-nut 

 having such a very hard shell to the triangular seeds and a still 

 harder covering to the globular fruit, which falls from the very 

 lofty trees without opening, and has to bo broken open with 

 an axe by the seed-collectors, is another example. This is saiil 

 not to open naturally to let the seed escape for a year or more ; 

 and this fact, with its almost perfect globular form, would 

 facilitate its being scattered to a considerable distance by the 

 feet of tapirs, deer, or peccaries, and when at last the seeds 

 fell out, perhaps aided by the teeth or feet of these animals, 

 some of them would almost certainly be trodden into the 

 ground, and this would be facilitated by their sidvangidar 

 shape. If this is the mode of dispersal it has ]u*oved very suc- 

 cessful, for the species is widely srattorrd iti moderate-sized 

 groves over a considerable portion of th(^ Amazonian forests. 



