the natural Distribution of Insects and Fungi. 65 



Consequently some general idea of the primary distribution of 

 all organized beings may be obtained from the following figure. . 



To conclude : If an arrangement be natural, it will stand any 

 test ; and to support the truth of this proposition, I shall now 



arrange 



vel rimas quserunt, fiumiditateque gaudent ut ilia, organis jam in superiore sectione 

 deperditis iteriim instructae." In these last words he alludes to his own opinion, that 

 Mosses display organs nearly related to the cotyledons of dicotyledonous plants, while 

 the monocotyledonous plants conceal their cotyledon; and if botanists should adopt 

 this opinion, we might assimilate it to the curious fact, that in the animal kingdom the 

 jmperfectly organized MoUusca display a heart, which is more analogous to that of the 

 Vertebrata than the dorsal vessel of insects. With respect, indeed, to the analogies 

 existing between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, they are too striking to have alto- 

 gether escaped the notice of such an observer as Agardh, who truly observes, " Memo- 

 rabilis est analogia evcJutionis seriei vegetabilis cum animali." When we lind him, 

 however, comparing the least perfect vegetables to some of the most perfect animals, 

 the Alg(E to Fishes, and the IJchenes to Insects, we must suspect that he is not suffi- 

 ciently acquainted with the evolution of the animal series, and conclude that he has at 

 least not sufficiently' attended to the parallelism of analogy. Neverthele^ss, his compa- 

 rison of Monocotyledonous, or, as he terms them, of Cryptocotyledonous Plants to 

 Birds, appears to be a true relation of analogy, although an indirect one ; and if he had 

 paid that attention to Entomology which the science really merits, so acute a botanist 

 could not have failed to perceive, that the arguments he gives in support of this last 

 analogy, only receive their full force when they are employed in the comparison of 

 Monocotyledonous Plants with Insects. Thus, in the same page, he states aeriferous 

 cells to be peculiar to Birds in the animal kingdom, evidently not aware that many 

 more animals than are in the whole department of Fertebrata would have no means 

 VOL. XIV. K of 



