202 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



order that her grown child may be enabled to go 

 abroad, and look for a feulement in the world, (lie 

 crowns it with a tuft of plumage, or inclofes it in 

 a lhell : furnifhes it with wings to fly away through 

 the air, or with a bark to fail off along the face of 

 the water. 



There is fomething ftill more marked, to arreft 

 our obfervation, in favour of the fruit. It is this, 

 that Nature frequently varies the leaves, the flow- 

 ers, the fieras, and the roots of a plant ; but the 

 fruit remains conftantly the fame, if not as to it's 

 form, at lead as to it's effential fubflance. I am 

 perfuaded that, when fhe was pleafed to create a 

 fruit, it was her intention that it fhould have the 

 power of re-producing itfelf on the mountains, in 

 the plains, amidfl rocks, in fands, on the brink 

 of waters, and under different Latitudes ; and, in 

 order to adapt it to it's fituation, fhe varied the 

 watering-pot, the mirror, the prop, the attitude, 

 the buttrefs, and the fur of the vegetable, corre- 

 fpondingly to the Sun, to the rains, to the winds, 

 and to the foil. To this intention, I believe, we 

 ought to afcribe the prodigious variety of fpecies 

 in every genus, and the degree of beauty which 

 each attains, when in the fituation that is natural 

 to it. Thus, in forming the cheftnut to reach per- 

 fection on the flony mountains of the South of 

 Europe, and to fupply the want of corn, which 



fcarcely 



