NATURE'S EMIGRANTS.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9377, 22 February 1909, Page 2

NATURE'S EMIGRANTS.

Emigration is a habit indulgjMl in 1 by every conceivable form of , and is not. as might be sappo® confined to mankind and a ie JJ species of bird. Wherever we turn in nature we find the command to *■ ‘‘move on” perpetually bamg ? b For d instance, certain butterflies in Europe emigrate almost an “" a lv' Familiar garden species such as dihe and black and white butterfly that takes vast flights across the Pacific, covering sometimse as much as 3000 miles in its endeavour to ool °“!®? “ , new lands. .This is a prodigious distance for so frail a creature to go, and it is not to he wondered at that sailors have sometimes seen them falling in scores into the sea from sheer exhustion. • Cattle, and some ° ar “ iv 9f°“ s beasts, such as the tiger and bo , emigrate very little, but have bee known to wander many hundreds o miles from their accustomed haunts .after the mating season 1Q SBarß “. of a new land for their cubs; and ia the north it is not an uncommon thing to see thousands of reindeer marching with all the order a precision of an army to new iands when food in their old quarters has given out. ' When it comes to slow, creepy creatures like beetles, whose flight is very laborious, and whose feet are only adapted for a leisurely orawl - a ■ different means is employed. In fact, an emigrating beetle travels by car or airship—or, in othß * .^ ord ®’ he fastens on ot feathers of the hair of animals, and is earned away free of charge. Caterpillars only emigrate when their food supply gives out, and some solitary examples have a curious knack of fastening on to anything that happens to brush by them, and are often carried by human beings for long distances. Whoa it comes to plants, the task of emigration is still more difficult. Yet emigrate they must, because some plants will reproduce themselves ten thousand times in one season, and there would be no space for so huge a progeny to develop. The difficulty ia overcome by what may be called mechanical emigration. . Have you ever noticed those tiny little brown and green sticky pellets that cling to your clothes so persistently in fields? Tfiese are the seeds of the goosegrass, and are very smart at emigration. Each seed is covered ia stiff hair, and every hair ends in a hook. The hooked hairs are put on expressly to help the seed to get away. . If a dog, or a horse, or a human being brushes past the mother plant, the little seed gets mechanically hooked on. If the human being should pack his clothes away without brushing them thoroughly, and - go to New York, the little seed will end by taking root on American sou. Some species of plants emigrate by ? flying, only, of course, the flying is mechanical, everybody is familiar with the little festoons of dandelion fluff that float about in summer-time. When the flower has ceased blooming, it discharges the fluff from its centre; the first passing breeze breaks the fluff up into a number of gauzy parachutes, each as scientifically constructed as though out by machinery.i At the base of each parachute hangs a dandelion seed. The wind elevates the aeronaut from toe ground and bears it away leewardsometimes hundreds of miles —until the seed drops away from the fluff and falls to the earth. A very carious mode of travelling is adopted by the common gorze—that prickly bush witn yellow flowers so plentiful on commons which keeps its seeds in a pod. The pod grows quietly enough at first, hut when the ripening hour comes, aided by a burning summer sun, it explodes with a Cracking noise, scattering its contents right and left. The journey in this case is, of course, very brief. The more diminutive seeds of plants rely upon transplantation, that is to say, they are conveyed hither and thither in the soil that happens to cling to the feet of birds, beasts and human beings. There is a remarkable instance on record of a scientist who examined a small clod of earth from the foot of a bird which had recently arrived from across the sea and been shot. In the clod, which was less than a quarter of an inch square in size, he found no fewer than thirty-seven different species of grass-seed. Some seeds are impervious to salt ■ water, and use the ocean as a means of travelling. On the authority of Darwin, they have been known to float across the ocean for a distance of 3400 miles withont losing their fertility.