a very small portion of mud may serve to convey seeds, and such an occurrence repeated even at long intervals may greatly aid in stocking remote islands with vegetation. Many seeds also adhere to the feathers of birds, and thus, again, may be conveyed as far as birds are ever carried. Dr. Guppy found a small hard seed in the gizzard of a Cape Petrel, taken about 550 miles east of Tristan da Cunha.
Dispersal of Seeds by the Wind.
In the preceding cases we have been able to obtain direct evidence of transportal; but although we know that many seeds are specially adapted to be dispersed by the wind, we cannot obtain direct proof that they are so carried for hundreds or thousands of miles across the sea, owing to the difficulty of detecting single objects which are so small and inconspicuous. It is probable, however, that the wind as an agent of dispersal is really more effective than any of those we have hitherto considered, because a very large number of plants have seeds which are very small and light, and are often of such a form as to facilitate aerial carriage for enormous distances. It is evident that such seeds are especially liable to be transported by violent winds, because they become ripe in autumn at the time when storms are most prevalent, while they either lie upon the surface of the ground, or are disposed in dry capsules on the plant ready to be blown away. If inorganic particles comparable in weight, size, or form with such seeds are carried for great distances, we may be sure that seeds will also be occasionally carried in the same way. It will, therefore, be necessary to give a few examples of wind-carriage of small objects.
On 27th July 1875 a remarkable shower of small pieces of hay occurred at Monkstown, near Dublin. They appeared floating slowly down from a great height, as if falling from a dark cloud which hung overhead. The pieces picked up were wet, and varied from single blades of grass to tufts weighing one or two ounces. A similar shower occurred a few days earlier in Denbighshire, and was observed to travel in a direction contrary to that of the wind in the lower atmosphere.[1] There is no evidence of the distance from which the hay was
- ↑ Nature (1875), vol. xii. pp. 279, 298.
