26 ON THE DISPERSAL OF SEEDS BY MAMMALS. 



from its cup and is most difficult for a squirrel to hold. It 

 can take it in its mouth by the aid of the raised circular rim 

 at the bottom and thus carry it off, but to eat it it must hold 

 the slippery conical portion in its paws so as to nibble at the 

 base, the only place where its teeth can get a purchase, and 

 it naturally lets many of these silky-coated acorns slip unhurt 

 from its grasp. 



The method of dispersal is a very expensive one, a large 

 proportion of seeds being destroyed by the squirrels, compar- 

 ed with those that are deposited by them in suitable posi- 

 tions for development into trees, but so large is the crop pro- 

 duced at one time that the number safely planted is quite 

 sufficient to keep up the stock. It must be remembered too 

 that it is necessary for the trees to supply enough nuts to 

 tempt the squirrels. If the squirrels did not get enough off 

 the trees to eat or these seeds were so well protected that they 

 could not get at them, they would be less likely to visit the 

 trees at all and indeed where there are few or no squirrels, as 

 in the hill forests, oaks and chestnuts are much more scanty 

 than in the low country where they abound. 



Wallace (Tropical Nature, ed. 1891, p. 400,) says of 

 most of the plants whose large seeded nuts cannot be eaten 

 without destroying their germinating power : — " It is a sug- 

 gestive fact that they are among the most ancient of known 

 dicotyledonous plants — oaks and beeches going back to 

 to the cretaceous period with little change of type so that it 

 is not improbable that they are older than any fruit-eating 

 mammal adapted to feed upon their fruits." 



Still in the prickly husk of the chestnut, and in the smooth 

 polished or silky exterior of the acorns, we see that these 

 fruits have undergone modifications by which the little 

 enemies have been prevented from exterminating the trees, 

 and have been utilized as dispersers of the seeds. 



Very much remains to be observed still as to the action of 

 fruit-eating mammalia as seed-dispersers. Many of them are 

 difficult to watch in a wild state on account of their shyness 

 and nocturnal habits, and even in Malaya there are several 

 such as the Loris {Nycticebas tardigradiis), the Galago 



