64 
SEED DISPERSAL. 
Some friends of mine collected a quantity of hazelnuts, 
while yet the green husks enclosed the nuts, and placed 
them near the house to dry. At once they were discov- 
ered by a blue jay, which picked out a nut at a time, flew 
away, held the nut between its toes, cracked it from the 
small end, and ate the contents. In this operation a num- 
ber of nuts slipped away and were lost. But it seems that 
all were not eaten, for the next season half a dozen or more 
hazel shoots came up, and to-day a new patch of hazel 
bushes is growing in the yard. Doubtless many acorns 
are carried from place to place and dropped in an aimless 
way by woodpeckers, blue jays, and crows ; also beech- 
nuts by these birds, and by nuthatches, and by pigeons, 
before the latter became nearly extinct. Woodpeckers 
and blue jays place beechnuts and small acorns in the 
crevices of bark on standing trees. If left there very 
long, the nuts will become too dry to grow, but in the act 
of transporting them some of the nuts may be accidentally 
dropped in various places. 
39. Do birds digest all they eat ? — To determine whether 
seeds would lose their vitality in passing through the digest- 
ive organs of birds, Kerner von Marilaun fed seeds of two 
hundred and fifty different species of plants to each of the 
following : blackbird, song thrush, robin, jackdaw, raven, 
nutcracker, goldfinch, titmouse, bullfinch, crossbill, pigeon, 
five rods distant and crowded the acorn into the soil as far as it could, cover- 
ing the spot with a few leaves. A member of my family saw a blue jay 
leave half of a black walnut in the forks of several small branches. 
