The fact of the larger fruits often floating longer than the small, is
interesting; as plants with large seeds or fruit which, as Alph. de
Candolle has shown, generally have restricted ranges, could hardly be
transported by any other means.
Seeds may be occasionally transported in another manner. Drift timber is
thrown up on most islands, even on those in the midst of the widest oceans;
and the natives of the coral islands in the Pacific procure stones for
their tools, solely from the roots of drifted trees, these stones being a
valuable royal tax. I find that when irregularly shaped stones are
embedded in the roots of trees, small parcels of earth are very frequently
enclosed in their interstices and behind them, so perfectly that not a
particle could be washed away during the longest transport: out of one
small portion of earth thus COMPLETELY enclosed by the roots of an oak
about fifty years old, three dicotyledonous plants germinated: I am
certain of the accuracy of this observation. Again, I can show that the
carcasses of birds, when floating on the sea, sometimes escape being
immediately devoured; and many kinds of seeds in the crops of floating
birds long retain their vitality: peas and vetches, for instance, are
killed by even a few days' immersion in sea-water; but some taken out of
the crop of a pigeon, which had floated on artificial sea-water for thirty
days, to my surprise nearly all germinated.
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