34 PLANTS, SEEDS, AND CURRENTS 



with some conjectures about the way of their being brought thither 

 from Jamaica, where three sorts of them grow " by Sir Hans Sloane 

 (Phil. Trans. 1695-7). After referring to the mention of them by 

 Sibbald and the elder Wallace, he deals with them successively. 

 The first he identifies with the Jamaican " Cocoon," the name given 

 in that island to the seed of Entada scandens, as known to botanists. 

 The second, he says, is the Jamaican " Horse-eye bean," which from 

 his description is evidently the seed of Mucuna urens, a seed that 

 bears the same popular name in our own time. The third, he says, 

 is the " ash-coloured Nickar " of Jamaica, called so, as he goes on 

 to state, from its being " very like a Nickar," such as boys play 

 with. I may add that " knicker," " nicker," etc., were forms of 

 an old English and Scottish name for marbles. Botanists have no 

 hesitation in recognising here the seeds of Guilandina bonducella. It 

 bears the same common name in the West Indies now. Of the source 

 of the fourth he states that " authors are silent " ; but although 

 he remarks that he " had never seen it grow," his reference to it 

 as described and figured by Clusius, the elder Wallace, and others, 

 undoubtedly points to its being the seed of Ipomcea tuberosa, as 

 determined in recent years by Mr. Hemsley, and to which further 

 allusion will be made. I have not come upon any recent 

 references to West Indian drift seeds in the Orkney Islands, but one 

 may note that Mr. Bullock, the naturalist, gathered seeds of Entada 

 scandens there about a century ago (A. de Capell Brooke in Travels 

 in Sweden, etc., in 1820, p. 317). 



The Shetland Islands. — In connection with the occurrence of 

 West Indian seed-drift in this archipelago I put myself in communica- 

 tion with Mr. John Fox, then stationed in that group, and through 

 his kindness was able to inspect two seeds from the Shetland beaches, 

 one of Entada scandens, the other of Dioclea refleuca, both of them in 

 sound condition, which were courteously loaned by Mr. J. Tulloch 

 of Lerwick. Mr. Fox subsequently sent me two seeds of Entada 

 scandens, one of the species of Mucuna near M. urens, and a seed of 

 Ipomcea tuberosa, the last being the species above named as found 

 on the Orkney beaches, and it is one that is represented in my drift 

 collections from Jamaica and the southern extremity of the Bahamas. 

 All these seeds were picked up on the Shetland coasts, and Mr. Fox 

 tells me that the wives of the fishermen make ornaments of them. 

 In reply to a letter asking for further information, Mr. Tulloch kindly 

 furnished me with references to Shetland literature, but added that 

 he knew of no mention there of Gulf Stream drift. At his suggestion 

 I wrote to Mr. Peterson, postmaster of Foula, an island at the south- 

 west corner of the group ; but on doing so I learned that that island 

 is not suited for retaining drift, and that during a residence of over 

 fifty years Mr. Peterson had never seen any of the seeds described 

 to him by me. 



The Faroe Islands. — The occurrence of these strange drift 

 seeds on the Faroe Islands formed a subject of remark for Peter 

 Claussen in his Description of Norway, which was written at the close 

 of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century; but, 

 as previously stated, he had no idea of their true nature. Debes, 



