248 STUDIES OF NATURE, 



to our feeble reafon, and confonant to the great 

 principles of our Sciences, which afcribe fo much 

 power to analogies, and to phyfical caufes, that fo 

 many fenfible beings which are produced in the 

 midft of verdure, mould be, in procefs of time, 

 affected by it. The impremons of their parents, 

 added to thofe of their own infancy, which ferve to 

 explain fo many appearances in the human fpe^ 

 cies, acquiring, in them, increafing flrength, from 

 generation to generation, by new tints, ought, at 

 length, to exhibit oxen and (heep as green as the 

 grafs on which they pafture. We have obferved, 

 in the preceding Study, that as vegetables were 

 detached from the ground by means of their green 

 colour, the animals which live on verdure diftin- 

 guifh themfelves from it, in their turn, by means 

 of their duiky colours; and thofe which live on 

 the duiky barks of trees, or of other dark grounds, 

 are inverted with colours brilliant, and fometimes 

 green. 



On this fubjecl, I have to remark, that many 

 fpecies of the birds of India, which live amidft the 

 foliage of trees, as the greateft part of paroquets, 

 many of the colibri, and even of turtles, are of the 

 fineft green; but independamly of the white, blue, 

 and red marbled fpots, which diftinguifh their 

 different tribes, and render them perceptible at a 

 diflance upon the trees, the brilliant verdure of 



their 



