PREFACE. 



argument from that tor which it is brought. The author 

 is made to say : " As regards the inheritance like a palmyra 

 tree ; it is the nature of this tree not to grow from cuttings 

 or shoots; having lived its time, it flowers and bears fruit ; 

 when the fruit has fallen off, the parent tree dies; after its 

 death, each fruit becomes a tree and continues the family. 

 Whilst the tree was alive, no other tree could be pro- 

 duced ; so only on the death of their parents do children 

 inherit." The palmyra tree produces its fruit annually, as 

 regularly as the apple tree, and young trees may be raised 

 from it as easily as from apple seeds, while the parent tree 

 is still living ; so if the comparison prove any thing, it 

 proves that children may inherit before the death of the 

 parent, just the converse of that for which the comparison 

 was made. Lef, however, the original word be correctly 

 translated, and no simile can be more striking, and ap- 

 propriate. A corvpha palm after it has borne fruit, lifts 

 its blackened leafless head above all the other trees of the 

 forest, like the dead father of the woods struck by light- 

 ning. 



Where two or more systematic names are attached to 

 an article in this work, they are, unless the contrary be 

 indicated, the different names by which the same object 

 is designated by different writers. In zoology these syno- 

 nymes have been selected principally from articles pub- 

 lished in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, by Dr, Cantor 

 and Mr. Blyth. In botany the first name is the one un- 

 der which the article will be found in Voigt's Catalogue, 

 if in that work, and in other modern writers; while the 

 second is the Linnsean name, or the one by which it was 

 described by Roxburgh and by other authors of the old 

 school. 



The utility of these synonymes will be best understood 

 by an example. Gesenius, Rosenmuller, Harris, and other 

 Biblical writers, tell their readers that cophcr designates 

 Lawsonia inermis ; and Dr. Wight in his Illustrations of 

 Indian Botany, gives a handsome coloured figure of Lmc- 

 sonia alba. To a person not read in botany these will 

 be regarded as different specie?, but on turning to my 



