THE WONDERS OF VEGETATION. 45 



day as they had been commanded, they were much 

 surprised to see that the body of their father had been 

 transformed into a great tree. His toes had stretched 

 out to form the roots ; his powerful and robust body 

 had furnished the trunk, his outstretched arms were 

 changed into branches, and his hands into leaves. His 

 bald head finally had disappeared, and a delicious fruit 

 was found in its place. 



This legend recalls the seventh circle of the Infer- 

 no of Dante, where the souls who had been violent 

 upon earth are seen changed into living trees, while 

 their limbs writhe and twist like the branches of dead 

 trees. But we prefer the simple legend of the primi- 

 tive isles to the gloomy imagination of the great Ital- 

 ian ; the poet speaks of the dead, the islanders appeal 

 to the living. 



THE MILK TREE. 



Ever since the discovery of the New World by 

 Columbus, explorers have been hard at work to become 

 familiar with the new countries which were opened 

 up before them, and to publish descriptions of the new 

 forms of life both in the animal and the vegetable 

 kingdom. If we were to believe all the marvellous 

 narratives of the early times, from Marco Polo to Ma- 

 gellan, we might easily place in our Book of Wonders 

 men with dog-heads and trees gifted with the powers 

 of speech. But we do not mean here to repeat those 

 fables ; we are interested only in natural and actual 

 wonders. As early as the year 1505 many remarkable 

 plants and animals had already been described truth- 



