REJUVENESCENCE IN NATURE. 17 



into the light-winged butterfly, the footless or headless 

 maggot into the deeply-segmented fly; here, also, 

 occurs the greatest retreat and gathering in of life, a 

 deeper sleep of weeks, months, or even years' duration, 

 which may be compared with the embryonal sleep in the 

 earliest period of formation of the organism, the sleep in 

 the egg. Without nourishment and without locomotion, 

 as it were shrouded in its pupa- coats, the insect prepares 

 the rejuvenised body for its future resurrection into a 

 freer, more mobile existence. 



The awakening of the butterfly from the pupa-sleep, 

 recalls to us the awakening of Nature from its winter sleep 

 in Spring; and this leads us to the proper subject of the 

 present considerations, the Rejuvenescence in Vegetable 

 life. The Vegetable Kingdom is, indeed, the principal 

 workshop of Spring : " the wonderful workshop where 

 myriads of vegetable atoms, in brief space, spin the 

 threads to clothe the trees and weave the verdant carpet 

 of the earth. With all its sunshine over land and sea, 

 with all its swelling streams and brooks, Spring would be 

 barren and empty without leaves and flowers, as a sky 

 without stars. Leaf and blossom alone give life and fresh- 

 ness to the active scene." * 



First of all, however, we must here dispel the illusion 

 that all the splendour of the new-born vegetable world, 

 which appears so magically in spring, is merely the work 

 of the few days in which it comes so suddenly into view. 

 No, the labour of Rejuvenescence begins earlier in the work- 

 shops of vegetable life, and Spring merely brings the last 

 steps before our eyes. The breath of Spring only urges 

 to its unfolding that which was prepared long before in 

 silence, that which was reserving and strengthening itself 

 during the evil season of winter. For in the same pro- 

 portion as the vegetable world advances in summer and 

 autumn, in shoot, leaf and flower, in wood and fruit, in 

 obedience to the impulse to outward representation, to 



* Elias Fries, " der Fruhlina" (Spinug). 'Archiv Scandinav. Beitrag,' i, 

 pp. 182, 214. 



