LONG DELAYED GERMINATION. 
20 ) 
water and some boiled potatoes and bread. It would not touch 
either, so I covered it up as warm as I could and put some hay 
in the box for it. On looking in the next morning the bird was 
quite lively, and opened its bill in a menacing w'ay. I found it 
had eaten all the potatoes and drank the water, so I gave it a 
fresh supply and this was soon swallowed. Although the bird 
would not allow me to handle it, and always retreated to the 
darkest corner or crept under the hay when 1 went to the box, it 
soon became tame enough to eat its food in my presence if I 
stood a few feet away and kept perfectly still. I resolved to 
make a pen and keep the bird in it, and it lived peaceably for 
four years in its new abode. I placed a large pan of water for 
it to bathe in, and it had a packing case to sleep in. It would 
get out at intervals and wander about the garden, but never at- 
tempted to escape altogether. After being out of its pen for 
perhaps an entire day and night it w'ould go quietly back again. 
I fed it on earthworms, snails, scraps of meat, potatoes and 
barley. This last it was very fond of, but would never eat dry ; 
I always had to throw it into its “ pond ” and let it pick the grains 
out at leisure when well soaked. It would also eat bread. I 
regret to say it was killed by a cat on returning home in the 
morning after one of its nocturnal rambles about the garden. 
Albert H. Waters. 
SUPPOSED LONG DELAYED GERMINATION, 
R. COCKERELL alludes in Nature Notes (p. 164), to 
“ the problem as to seeds germinating which were 
supposed to have been long buried in the soil.” He 
rightly adds that “ it is very far from being proved 
that the seeds were originally in the soil.” Many cases are on 
record of bulbs, seeds, &c., growing after prolonged periods ; 
thus, e.g., Mr. Munby found a species of narcissus sprouting in 
his herbarium after twenty-two years. Similarly, in my own 
experience, a bulb of the medicinal squill [Urginea Scilla) used for 
lecturing purposes at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical 
School, sprouted after being kept in a cabinet about twenty 
years ; and a seed of Banksia australis grew into a tree after 
being in the nut for twenty years. The stories, however, of 
“ mummy ” wheat having germinated are utterly fallacious, as 
I have shown in this Journal for 1890, p. 119. As a still older 
instance. Dr. Lindley recorded [Introduction to Botany, ii., p. 267) 
a supposed discovery of a Mr. Kemp, described in the Annals 
of NaUiral History (vol. xiii., p. 89), and he says: — “This is one 
of the few instances in which the suspension of vitality of seeds 
for a very long period is unquestionable.” The seeds in ques- 
tion are said to have been found in a peaty bed at the bottom 
