5S STUDIES OF NATURE. 



of induftry, of love, or of ferocity, which they 

 receive from their parents. The plan of their life 

 is contained in their cradles. However ftrange 

 thefe indications may appear, they are thofe of 

 Nature, who feems to tell us, that we may diftin- 

 guifh the character of her children, like her own, 

 in the fruits of love, and in the care which they 

 take of their pofterity. 



She, frequently, lodges under the fame roof, 

 the vegetable and animal life, and unites the def- 

 tiny of the one to that of the other. We fee them 

 burfting together from the fame fhell, blowing, 

 expanding, propagating, dying, in a fimilar pro- 

 greffion. At the fame inftant of time they prefent, 

 if I may be allowed the expreffion, the fame meta- 

 morphofes. While the plant is unfolding, in fuc- 

 ceffion, it's germs, it's buds, it's flowers, it's fruits, 

 the infe(5t is difplaying, fucceffively, on one of it's 

 leaves, the egg, the worm, the nymph, the butter- 

 fly, which contains, like it's parents, the feeds of 

 it's pofterity, with thofe of the plant which nou- 

 riflied it. It is thus that fable, far lefs marvellous 

 than Nature, inclofed the life of the Dryad within 

 the bark of the Oak. 



Thefe relations are fo fl:riking, in infefls, that 

 Naturalifts themfelves, notwithftanding their pro- 

 digious number of ifolated, and indeterminable 



claflTes, 



