292 THB FARMER AT HOME. 



should have a pretty accurate knowledge of many of the qualities 01 

 those natural objects with which his craft is connected. The fine 

 arts, though usually considered as the peculiar province of imagina- 

 tion, depend greatly also upon natural history. 



From the vicissitudes of the seasons acting upon the senses ; from 

 the presence of surrounding objects ; from the necessity of deriving 

 from them food, clothing, and shelter ; natural history must have been 

 a study of the first importance to man, and attended to from the earliest 

 periods of society. Before the invention of letters, however, the ob- 

 servations and discoveries of individuals were neither likely to be 

 communicated to those at a distance, nor recorded for the information 

 of posterity. In a more polished state of society, the case is different ; 

 and hence we find Alexander the Great decreeing a collection of ani- 

 mals for the examination of Aristotle ; and wild beasts, from every 

 quarter of the globe, produced and exhibited in the amphitheatres at 

 Rome. Yet Aristotle is almost the only ancient writer on zoology 

 that merits attention ; for even Pliny and JElian, with this great ex- 

 ample before their eyes, offer us nothing but crude collections, discrimi- 

 nated with little taste or judgment, truth and falsehood being blended 

 in one common mass : and for many succeeding years, from various 

 causes, all Europe is well known to have been immersed in ignorance 

 and credulity as to the most common facts of this study. 



The bodies, as well of plants as of animals, consist of fluids and 

 solids ; they have both vessels designed to contain the fluids, and 

 glands to secrete different juices : while the blood circulates through 

 the bodies of animals, the sap of vegetables ascends and descends, so 

 as to produce the same effects on the vegetable, which the motion of 

 the blood, by the force of the heart and the arteries, produces on the 

 animal system. These are but a few of the resemblances which have 

 been observed between the species of the animal and those of the 

 vegetable kingdom. Almost every one of the parts common to animal 

 bodies, has been represented by one naturalist or another, as matched 

 by some correspondent part in vegetable bodies. Such analogies are 

 sometimes plain and striking, and sometimes scarcely perceptible, or 

 merely imaginary. They afford, however, an agreeable subject of 

 speculation ; and it cannot be denied that they increase the difficulty 

 of ascertaining the limits by which these two departments of nature 

 are divided. But however numerous and strong the analogies between 

 animals and vegetables, however difficult it may be to discern the 

 precise line which separates the one kingdom from the other, yet the 

 leading characteristics are sufficiently distinct. The privileges which 

 animals enjoy above the other parts of the creation, are in most in- 

 stances highly conspicuous. 



Animals have an organized structure, which regularly unfolds 

 itself, and is nourished and supported by air and food ; they conse- 

 quently possess life, and are subject to death ; they are moreover 





