70 
SEED DISPERSAL. 
certain kinds of seeds, portions or all of which they eat 
at once or carry to their homes. A number of persons 
in different countries and at different times have seen 
ants carrying seeds. Some young student of botany may 
have noticed along one side of the glossy seeds of the 
bloodroot a delicate, fleshy ridge, and wondered what 
could be its use. The answer can now be given with a 
good degree of confidence. The ants either eat this fleshy 
ridge at once, or, as more frequently happens, carry such 
seeds to their homes. The smooth seeds 
they do not eat, but cast them out of 
their nests after using the part they like ; 
fig. 53. -a view of a after being rejected the seed may stand 
seed °f euphorbia a c p ance to germinate. The seeds can- 
with a soft bunch at o 
one end, a handle for not be carried so well unless this ridge, 
caruncle, be present. Other seeds of this 
nature are those of wild ginger, celandine, cyclamen, 
violet, periwinkle, some euphorbias, bellwort, trillium, 
prickly poppy, dutchman’s breeches, squirrel-corn, several 
species of Corydalis, Seneca snakeroot, and other species 
of milkworts. 
In his work on Vegetable Mold and Earthworms, p. 113, 
Darwin states that earthworms are in the habit of lining 
their holes, using seeds among other things, and that these 
sometimes grow. In this way the worms aid in spreading 
plants. 
43. Cattle carry away living plants and seeds. — In Ari- 
zona, where cacti abound, Professor Tourney finds that 
