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68 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



The young of pigeons, and of mod granivorous 

 fowls, are clothed with a greenilh fhaggy coat, 

 refembling the moffes of their nefts. Caterpillars 

 are blind, and have the complexion of the foliage, 

 and of the barks, which they devour. Nay, the 

 young fruits, before they come to be armed with 

 prickles, or inclofed in cafes, in bitter pulps, in 

 hard (hells, to protedl their feeds, are, during the 

 feafon of their expanfion, green as the leaves 

 which furround them. Some embryons, it is true, 

 fuch as thofe of certain pears, are ruddy or brown; 

 but they are then of the colour of the bark of the 

 tree to which they belong. When thofe fruits 

 have inclofed their feeds in kernels, or nuts, fo 

 as to be in no farther danger, they then change 

 colour. They become yellow, blue, gold-colour- 

 ed, red, black, and give to their refpeâ:ive trees 

 their natural contrafts. It is ftrikingly remark- 

 able, that every fruit which has changed colour has 

 feed in a flate of maturity. 



The infefls, in like manner, having depofited 

 their robes of infancy, and now committed to 

 their own experience, fpread abroad over the 

 World, to multiply the harmonics of it, with the 

 attire and the inftinds which Nature has conferred 

 upon them. Then it is that clouds of butterflies, 

 which, in their caterpillar (late, were confounded 

 with the verdure of plants, now oppofe the colours 



and 



