THE WILD CLEMATIS. 109 



make choice of dissimilar materials, though each 

 species has the same instruments to effect it, where, 

 generally speaking, no sufficient reason for such 

 variety of forms and texture is obvious, so it is fitting 

 that insects should be furnished with a variety of 

 powers and means to accomplish their require- 

 ments, having wants more urgent, their nests being 

 at times to be so constructed as to resist the influ- 

 ence of seasons, to contain the young for much 

 longer periods, even occasionally to furnish a supply 

 of food, or be a storehouse to afford it when wanted 

 by the infant brood. 



The wild clematis, or traveller's joy (clematix 

 vitalba), thrives greatly in some of the dry stony 

 parts of our parish, insinuating its roots into the 

 clefts and passages of our limestone rocks, where 

 those of many other plants could not find admis- 

 sion or support ; and forms in our hedgerows a 

 heavy shapeless mass of runners and branches, 

 encumbering and overpowering its neighbours, 

 many of which it often destroys ; and we see the 

 clematis clinging round a few stunted, half vegetat- 

 ing thorns, constituting the only fence, miserable 

 as it is. The runners or branches are very strong 

 and flexile, and are much used by our peasantry 

 as a binding for hedge faggots. The tubes, lymph 

 ducts, and air-vessels of this plant (Plate 3. Fig. .) 

 appear in a common magnifier beautifully arranged, 

 being large, and admitting the air freely to circulate 

 through them. Our village boys avail themselves 

 of this circumstance, cut off a long joint from a dry 



