PART I.
HARVESTING ANTS.
It was in May, 1869, that Mr. Bentham in his
presidential address to the Linnean Society called
attention to the want of reliable information as to
the existence of such subterranean accumulations of
seeds as are popularly supposed to account for the
sudden appearance on railway cuttings, gravel from
deep pits, and the like, of crops of weeds hitherto
unknown in a district.
He suggested that it might repay the trouble if some accurate observers were to take this in hand, and investigate the matter both by examining samples of undisturbed soil taken from various depths,—when, if any seeds of moderate size were present and undecomposed, it would be tolerably easy to distinguish them,—and also by ascertaining what means of transport exist by which seeds may be scattered over exposed surfaces, and thus explain the difficulty without having recourse to hypothetical supplies of sound though long-buried seeds.[1]*
- ↑ M. Kerner of Innspruck has lately adduced some facts bearing on the question of the transport of seeds by the wind, having examined the collections of animal and vegetable substances found on the icy surfaces of glaciers and the plants growing on moraines. Judging from the facts thus obtained, he attributes but a small influence to this agency, as the specimens dis-*
