AN ENGLISH SUNDEW. 179 



"with its clammy-haired paws full uf dead liies, just as 

 they would have been in any bog in Devonshire or in 

 Hampshire, in Wales or in Scotland. But how came it 

 here ? And more, how has it spread, not only over the 

 whole of Northern Europe, Canada, and the United States, 

 but even as far south as Brazil? Its being common to 

 North America and Europe is not surprising. It may 

 beloDg to that comparatively ancient Elora which existed 

 when there was landway between the two continents by way 

 of Greenland, and the bison ranged from Eussia to the 

 Rocky ^Mountains. But its presence within the Tropics is 

 more probably explained by supposing that it, like the 

 Bladder- worts, has been carried on the feet or in the 

 crop of birds. 



The Savanna itself, like those of Caroui and Piarco, 

 offers, I suspect, a fresh proof that a branch of the Oroonoco 

 once ran alono- the foot of the northern mountains of 

 Trinidad. 



"It is impossible," says Humboldt,^ "to cross the burning- 

 plains " (of the Oroonocquan Savannas) " without inquiring 

 whether they have always been in the same state ; or 

 whether they have been stripped of their vegetation by some 

 revolution of nature. The stratum of mould now found on 

 them is very thin The plains were, doubtless, less 



^ " Personal Narrative," vol. iv. p. 336 of H. M. Williams's translation. 



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