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Copy, from MS. in the handwriting of the late W. Thompson Esqre.—

"Birds,— their power of transporting seeds &c.

July 1/48. On the top of Cultra garden wall I remarked the following species of woody plants (The herbaceous I did not note growing the seeds of all of wh. must I consider have been taken there by Birds—

Mountain Ash

{one 2 inches diameter in stem had to be cut down to save the wall. No tree grows so well or is seen so frequently on the top of walls.  

White Thorn

Woodbine

Whin

Gooseberry

Currant

Bramble

Rose

Raspberry

Cherry

Ivy

Ash

Salix capræa.  1 "

"Oct 48
Richard Langtry has often seen pickles of wheat quite perfect & fresh in the castings wh. his Eagles threw up after being fed on sparrows, these birds were very rarely eaten whole by the eagles."

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"Seeds carried by migratory Birds

In the Edin. Phil. Jour. Jany. 4 1849 a paper by Mr. Ch. Martins  appears, entitled "On the Vegetable Colonization of the British Islands, Shetland, Feroe  & Iceland"* The author reviews the papers of Forbes2, & writings of H.C. Watson3 and states that he has himself studied the vegetable colonization of Shetland, the Feroe Islands & Iceland. It is remarked at p. 52.

"There is still another mode of transportation peculiar to the countries we are considering & which does not appear to have been hitherto taken in account: I mean migratory birds. Every spring, millions of sea-birds leave the coasts of Spain, France & England, & migrate to the north, in order to lay & hatch their eggs in the steep & deserted shores of Shetland, Feroe, & Iceland: the following autumn they return to Europe with their brood. These birds transport rapidly from one island to another the seeds of vegetables preserved in their gizzards, or attached to their feathers. They thus become the principal agent of the American (!W.T.) migration, for it is exactly towards the end of the summer of these regions at the time when seeds are ripe, that they return towards the south— In this journey, the islands of wh. we have been speaking serve

* It originally appeared in the. "Bib. Universelle. June 1848"

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them as a kind of provisional magizines  or resting points, & they they sow there the seeds they have transported through the air' "

"Seeds carried by migratory birds Feb. 25. 1850.  Since I called Mr. Darragh's attention to this subject in June 1849, he has examined the legs & plumage of a great number of aquatic birds of various species— has examined every bird he had the opportunity of doing & in no instance did he find any seeds adherent to plumage or legs. Nor did he ever do so in the case of many hundreds of the Anatidæ & other aquatic birds wh he has shot—"

"Wild Goose shot at Lake Erie in Sep. 1843 & purchased by a gentleman who found in its stomach two-seeds wh. being sown produced an extraordinary prolific vary.. Some was sent to the Belfast Botanic Garden & subsequently to Dr. Montgomery of Dunmurry  This was in 1845 in wh. year also Mr. Ferguson3 (Bot. Gard.) informs me the subject was noticed in the Gardener's Chronicle."

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"Sparrowhawk. March. 1851.

J. R. Garrett tells me that he once shot a sparrowhawk in the [illeg] & next morning when skinning it found a grey linnet in its crop in whose crop again were a pickle of wheat & some small seeds—"