210 



IvIVING PI, A NTS 



Learned 

 vagaries 



tween the essential natures of the two classes 

 of objects, to be deep-seated and almost uni- 

 versal. Only two or three centuries ago there 

 were even learned men who believed in the 

 Scythian lamb, that grew^ on the top of a 



Fig. 21. — The Scythian lamb, that vegetated like a tree, 

 but ate herbage. It was reputed to flourish on the salt plains 

 west of the Volga. Cut reproduced from Claude Buret's "His- 

 toric des Plantes," 1605. 



small tree-trunk in place of foliage, and in the 

 wonderful tree of the British Isles, whose fruit 

 turned to birds when it fell upon the ground, 

 and wO fishes when it fell into water. In still 

 earlier times, even more astonishing vagaries 

 v^ere accepted as common knowledge, es- 

 pecially when vouched for by travelers. 

 But naturalists and others, who withheld 



