How Chance Agencies Convey Stray Brutes From One Locality to Another.
The manner in which animals may be conveyed from one area or region to another by what may be called chance agencies, has always formed a subject of much interest in the eyes of naturalists. The same opinions may be expressed of the dispersal of plants, says the London Chronicle. Darwin found over 80 seeds in a little clod of earth attached to the leg of a migrating bird, and we can readily imagine how such agencies serve to widen the distribution of life. Sir C. Lyell gives an instance of a pig-an animal popularly believed to be anything but adept at swimming-being found far out at sea bravely making its way toward some haven of rest. Such animals as tortoises may easily be conveyed on driftwood over long tracts of ocean. A recent report of the Indian marine survey gives a case in point. A female leopard was brought down the Moulmein river and came aboard a cargo steamer. Then she swam to land and was thereafter dispatched. Snakes were also found on the floats of the paddlewheels of the surveying steamer, having been carried down by the flood.
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