I02 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



their young branches into the air, and others of an 

 aged form, with pendent top and hollow trunk. 



Let us add to ihefe their auxiliary plants, fiich 

 as the green moffes and gilded lichen^ which 

 marble their gray rind, and fome of the convolvu- 

 lufes, vulgarly called lady's-fmock, which delight 

 to fcramble along their trunk, and to embellifli 

 the branches, which have no flowers of their own, 

 with leaves in form of a heart, and flowers white 

 as fnow, hollowed into the fliape of a fpire. Let 

 us, finally, introduce the inhabitants natural to the 

 willow, and it's acceflbry plants, their butterflies, 

 their flies, their beetles, and other infeds, toge- 

 gether with the feathered animals which make 

 war on them, fuch as the water-hen, poliflied like 

 the burnilhed fl:eel, which catches them in the 

 air ; the wag-tail, which purfues them on the land, 

 making the movement from which he derives his 

 name ; and the king's-fiflier, who hunts for them 

 along the lurface of the water; and you will fee a 

 multitude of agreeable harmonies arifing out of 

 one fingle fpecies of tree. 



They are, however, fl:ill imperfed. To the 

 willow let us oppofe the alder, which likewife af- 

 feds the bank of the river, and which, by it's 

 form refembling; that of a long tower, it's broad 

 foliage, it's dufky verdure, it's flefliy roots, formed 



like 



