328 ANIMALS BETTER KNOWN 



and of many of these they have no notion, except 

 in the state in which they appear at market or after- 

 ward. There are, in London, for instance, many 

 intelligent, and by no means illiterate persons, well 

 versed enough in all the science necessary for the 

 conducting of business, and in the common litera- 

 ture and occurrences of the day ; but who, if you 

 were to walk through Covent Garden with them, 

 and request them to make so simple a distinction as to 

 point out all the vegetables there that were produced 

 in the air, and all that were produced in the earth, 

 would find themselves sadly puzzled. So also, if 

 you asked them to point out which are the produc- 

 tions of annual plants, and which of larger kind ; or 

 which were natives of Britain and which not, they 

 would be at a loss. In like manner, if the production 

 were a seed, a fruit, or a root, they would not be able 

 to tell you any thing about the leaf or the flower ; 

 and if you questioned them as to the mode of cul- 

 ture, you would find them still sooner at a loss. If 

 they happened to have flower- pots or gardens, and 

 were fond of these, they would, no doubt, be able to 

 say something about what were grown in them, and 

 mention the names and describe the appearances of 

 the favourite and fashionable sorts. But take them 

 to a common, or a natural copse, or a tangled hedge, 

 or the sedgy bank of a river, and question them of 

 the productions there, and the probability is that, in 

 nine cases out of every ten, you would either get no 

 answer at all or a wrong one. 



If the question were respecting animals, the an- 

 swers would, in the more familiar species, be more 

 ready and more accurate. The motions of those 

 animals that do possess the power of moving from 

 place to place render the observation of them a 

 much more palpable matter than the observation of 

 plants ; and as they move entire, and carry all their 

 functions with them, while plants do not of them- 

 selves change their places, and, unless in any pecu- 



