With such facts before us, can we doubt that the many birds which are annually blown by gales across great spaces of ocean, and which annually migrate — for instance, the millions of quails across the Mediterranean — must occasionally transport a few seeds embedded in dirt adhering to their feet or beaks? But I shall have to recur to this subject.

As icebergs are known to be sometimes loaded with earth and stones, and have even carried brushwood, bones, and the nest of a land-bird, it can hardly be doubted that they must occasionally, as suggested by Lyell, have transported seeds from one part to another of the arctic and antarctic regions; and during the Glacial period from one part of the now temperate regions to another. In the Azores, from the large number of plants common to Europe, in comparison with the