FOSSIL PLANTS. 



365 



which do not appear until late in even the Tertiary ages. 

 The true grasses scarce appear in the fossil state at all. 

 For the first time, amid the remains of a flora that seems 

 to have had its few flowers, — the Oolitic ages, — do we 

 detect, in a few broken fragments of the wings of butter- 

 flies, decided traces of the flower-sucking insects. Not, 

 however, until we enter into the great Tertiary division do 

 these become numerous. The first bee makes its appear- 

 ance in the amber of the Eocene, locked up hermetically 

 in its gem-like tomb, — an embalmed corpse in a crystal 

 coffin, — along with fragments of flower-bearing herbs and 

 trees. Her tomb remains to testify to the gradual fitting 

 up of our earth as a place of habitation for a creature 

 destined to seek delight for the mind and eye, as certainly 

 as for the proper senses, and in especial marks the intro- 

 ducti3n of the stately forest trees, and the arrival of the 

 delicious flowers." l 



" Sweet flowers ! what living eye hath viewed 

 Their myriads? endlessly renewed; 

 Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray, 

 Where'er the suhtile waters stray, 

 Wherever sportive zephyrs hend 

 Their course, or genial showers descend." 



(1) Hugh Miller's Testimony of the Rocks. 



