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achieved by the fruit passing through different birds could diversify the germination strategies available to the plant. For a seed travelling by bird, therefore, the long haul is by no means the only benefit available; the choice of transport and the in-flight service could be even more important. n Peter D. Moore is in the Division of Life Sciences, Kings College, FranklinWilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NN, UK. e-mail: [email protected]
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100 YEARS AGOThe Leonid Meteors, November, 1901. A telegram to the daily Press through Reuters agency announces that a considerable number of meteors have been observed in localities where the weather conditions were propitious. Advices from many stations in the United States report more or less brilliant displays of the Leonids as having been seen on Thursday and Friday nights. A steamer from New Orleans reports having seen a great shower near Cape Hatteras early on Friday morning (November 15). The only night on which the sky was at all favourable in London was Thursday, November 14, and on that occasion continual watch was kept by three observers at the Solar Physics Observatory from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. A few meteors were seen, from twenty to thirty, but nothing in the semblance of a definite shower was presented. Many of the shooting stars seen were very brilliant, but those traced out as being Perseids or Taurids were as numerous as those decidedly radiating from the sickle of Leo, so that probably there was nothing more...