STUDY XI. 20I 



care which Nature has bellowed on it's formation 

 and prefervation. It is the ultimate term of her 

 prod ucl ions. If you examine, in a vegetable, the 

 different envelopes which inclofe it's leaves, it's 

 flowers, and it's fruits, you will perceive a moft 

 wonderful progreffion of pains and precautions. 

 The fimple leaf-buds are eafily diftinguifhable 

 from the fimplicity of their cafes. Nay, there are 

 plants which have none at all, as the {hoots of the 

 gramineous, which ftart immediately out of the 

 earth, and ftand in no need of any foreign protec- 

 tion. But the buds which contain flowers are pro- 

 vided with (heaths, or lined with down, as thofe of 

 the apple-tree ; or cafed over with glue externally, 

 as thofe of the great India cheftnut ; or are in- 

 clofed in bags, as the flowers of the narchTus ; or 

 fecured in fome way or another, fo as to be very 

 diftinguimable, even before their expanfion. 



You afterwards perceive, that the care employed 

 in dreffing out the flower, was entirely defiined to 

 the fecundation of the fruit ; and that when this 

 is once formed, Nature redoubles her precautions, 

 both externally and internally, for it's preferva- 

 tion. She gives it a placenta, fhe envelops it in 

 pellicles, in (hells, in pulps, in pods, in capfules, 

 in hufks, in ikins, and fometimes in a cafe of 

 thorns. A mother cannot pay more attention to 

 the cradle of her infant. In procefs of time, in 



order 



