74 Fruits and Fruit-Trees. 



garden stone-fruits, and are probably to be regarded as 

 rudimentary indications of the pinnate leaf of rosaceous 

 plants. 



To what degree the sylvestris may be accounted a 

 genuine native of the British Islands is, after all, 

 uncertain. Essentially it belongs to the northern parts 

 of Persia, the Russian provinces to the south of the 

 Caucasus, and to Armenia, extending thence to the 

 mountainous parts of Greece, Italy, and Spain, and over 

 continental Europe in general, as far as the south of 

 Sweden. It occurs also in Algeria. The stones being 

 carried to long distances by the birds, it has become 

 naturalized in north-west India, and, at the other ex- 

 treme, sparingly, in Madeira. To the same circumstance 

 is probably owing also the wide diffusion of the tree in 

 continental Europe, a diffusion beginning in prehistoric 

 time, when the birds, we may be sure, were in many 

 ways providing for the future welfare of mankind. If 

 mighty geological changes took place in the primitive 

 ages, all planned prospectively for the benefit of the 

 coming occupants of the earth's surface not forgetting 

 those which have helped to fill the world with glorious 

 scenery one of the inestimable aliments why should 

 not the birds also have rendered there own little innocent 

 service? In contemplating the outcome of the divine 

 institutes for the happiness and welfare of man, we deny 

 ourselves half the enjoyment which arises thereon, if 

 the eyes are not let rest quite as often upon the "trifles" 

 as upon the majestic. One of the natural varieties of 



