GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSECTS. 283 



the cool temperature of tliis elevation, procure to the inhabit- 

 ants of the torrid zone an extraordinary spectacle. Besides 

 groups of palms and bananas, they have around them forms of 

 vegetables which seem to belong only to the regions of the 

 north. Cypresses, firs, and oaks, barberries and alders, nearly 

 resembling our own, cover the mountains of the south of 

 Mexico, as well as the chain of the Andes, under the equator. 

 In these regions, nature has enabled man to behold, without 

 quitting his native land, all the forms of vegetables spread over 

 the face of the earth, and the vault of heaven, which displays 

 itself from pole to pole, with all its glittering worlds. These 

 natural enjoyments, and an infinity of others, are wanting 

 to the inhabitants of the north. Many constellations and many 

 forms of vegetables, especially the most beautiful, those of the 

 palms, the plantains, the arborescent graminece, and the mimostz, 

 with their fine pinnated foliage, remain for ever unknown to 

 them. The languishing individuals contained in our hot-houses 

 can give but a feeble idea of the majesty of tropical vegetation. 

 But the perfection of our language, the burning inspiration of 

 our poets, and the imitative art of our painters, open to us an 

 abundant source of recompense. Our imagination may hence 

 draw living images of exotic nature. In the rigorous climate 

 of the north, in the midst of the desert heath, man, though 

 solitary, can appropriate to himself all that has been discovered 

 in the most distant regions, and thus create within himself a 

 world, which, the offspring of his genius, is, like that, im- 

 perishable." 



In countries which offer so great a variety of elevation and 

 of temperature, an entomologist may sometimes wish to ascer- 

 tain, within a little, the temperature and elevation of a spot 

 when unprovided with the necessary instruments. Here he 

 can call in botany to his aid. The different forms of plants 

 alluded to in the above extract will enable him to form a tole- 

 rable estimate of the mean temperature. The abundance of 

 the PabncB, Musacece, and other plants confined to the hotter 

 regions, of course will show that the elevation is but small, 

 whilst the oaks, or Cinchonce, will point out to him that he 

 has reached that happy elevation where all fear of the dreadful 

 disorders of the lowlands is at an end ; where the air breathes 

 nothing but health : — 



