CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS. 333 



the sea and bring its seeds to the air, or of the Tapa and 

 Ulva that are supported on the surface of the water by 

 so ' many thereto contrived air-bladders, there is the 

 Hedysarum gyrans, whose leaves are in constant motion, 

 some rising, some falling, and others whirling circularly 

 about ; there is the Ocynum salinum, which, though it 

 grows sixty miles from the sea, is yet every morning 

 covered with saline globules, glittering at a distance like 

 dew, and so furnishes to the peasants who collect it, 

 about half an ounce of fine salt, plant by plant, daily ; 

 and there is the Cacalia suaveolens, as prolific in honey 

 as the Tobacco plant is prolific in seeds. The honey 

 may be smelt at a great distance from the plant. Dr. 

 Erasmus " once counted on one of these plants, besides 

 bees of various kinds without number, above two hundred 

 painted butterflies." On one Tobacco plant, again, the 

 seeds amounted to 360,000. "Nature," remarks Dr. 

 Erasmus here, and we have seen at her hands generally 

 as much in regard to the so-called struggle for life, " is 

 wonderfully prodigal in her seeds of vegetables and the 

 spawn of fish." 



Dr. Erasmus is nowise behindhand either in his 

 record of plants that imitate the structures of even 

 animal life. While the grandson seems to favour the 

 principle of attraction in such cases, repulsion is the 

 emphatic belief of the grandfather. So it is that he 

 sings of " fair Cypripedia," who has taken on the form 

 of a spider 



" In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies, 

 And on quick wings the panting plunderer flies." 



A curious example of this kind is the Ophrys, of 

 which there are several species, respectively imitating the 

 singular figures of gnats, flies, bees, and other insects ; 

 while there is one, called anthropofera, the man-shaped 



