eggs of some of the smaller freshwater animals.
Other and unknown agencies probably have also played a part. I have stated that freshwater fish eat some kinds of seeds, though they reject many other kinds after having swallowed them; even small fish swallow seeds of moderate size, as of the yellow water-lily and Potamogeton. Herons and other birds, century after century, have gone on daily devouring fish; they then take flight and go to other waters, or are blown across the sea; and we have seen that seeds retain their power of germination, when rejected many hours afterwards in pellets or in the excrement. When I saw the great size of the seeds of that fine water-lily, the Nelumbium, and remembered Alph. de Candolle’s remarks on the distribution of this plant, I thought that the means of its dispersal must remain inexplicable; but Audubon states that he found the seeds of the great southern water-lily (probably according to Dr. Hooker, the Nelumbium luteum ) in a heron’s stomach. Now this bird must often have flown with its stomach thus well stocked to distant ponds, and, then getting a hearty meal of fish, analogy makes me believe that it would have rejected the seeds in the pellet in a fit state for germination.