HARMONIES OF VEGETATION. 283 



before and one behind. In addition to this, birds find in the differ- 

 ent stages of the foliage, a shelter against the rain, the sun, and the 

 cold, towards wh'ch purpose, the thickness of the trunk still further 

 conlrib'utes. The seed and the fruit also appear to contribute to 

 substantiate their relation. 



23. Nature has likewise formed animals of a third 

 order, which find in the rind or in the flower of a plant, 

 as many accommodations as a quadruped enjoys in a 

 meadow, or a bird in an entire tree. These are insects, 

 the relations of which, to the parts of the plant they are 

 most attached to, are in some instances very beautiful. 



Thus butterflies and bees are furnished with tubes for sucking the 

 juices from the nectary of flowers. The flies, like the bees, have 

 cavities scooped out of their hairy thighs for collecting honey, nnd 

 four winijs to carry off their booty. The common fly and the gall 

 insect, have pointed and hollow piercers for the purpose of making 

 incisions in leaves and drinking their fluids. The weevil is de- 

 signed to bury itself in the seed, to live upon its substance, is 

 provided wilb a rasp to set itself free, and with wings to make its 

 escape. These are among a variety of illustrations, by hich the 

 adaptation of insects to plants, is very pleasingly displayed. 



24. As birds, insects, and even some quadrupeds are 

 supported entirely or chiefly by vegetable productions, 

 Providence has not regulated the fecundity of plants by 

 their size or strength, but to the ratio of animal species 

 for whose food they are destined. 



The pannic, the smallest millet, and several other gramineous 

 plants, so useful to animals and to man, produce beyond comparison, 

 more seeds than many plants much larjer and much smaller than, 

 themselves. There are many which perpetuate themselves by their 

 seed once a year ; but the duckweed, which affords sustenance, at 

 every season of the year, to the small birds of our climate, is reno- 

 vated by its seed seven or eight times, witkout being interrupted 

 even by winter. 



