O F N A T U K E. 77 



times prepared a place for them, Hence 

 always more fpecies of plants appear in thofe 

 places where this caterpillar has laid wafte 

 the paftures the preceding year, than at any 

 other time. 



§. 10. 

 Deftruaion. 



Daily experience teaches us, that all plants 

 as well as all other living things, miift fubmit 

 to death. 



They fpring up, they grows they florilli, 

 they ripen their fruit, they wither, and at laft, 

 having linifhed their courfe, they die, and re- 

 turn to the duft again, from whence they firft 

 took their rife. Thus all black mould, which 

 every where covers the earth, for the greateft 

 part is owmg to dead vegetables. For all roots 

 defcend into the fand by their branches, and 

 after a plant has loft its ftem the root remains i 

 but this too rots at laft, and changes into 

 mould. By this means this kind of earth is 

 mixed with fand, by the contrivance of na- 

 ture, nearly in the fame way as dung thrown 

 upon fields is wrought into the earth by the 

 induftry of the hulbandman. The earth thus 



pre- 



