THE YEW. 125 



round which minor ones are disposed planet-wise, 

 plain and palpable as are these great classes in 

 regard to their centres and the mass of their ele- 

 ments, there are located upon the frontiers of all, 

 without exception, certain curious forms which give 

 a hand, so to speak, to either side. Just as whales 

 link mammals to fishes, living in the ocean, like 

 sharks and dolphins, yet suckling their offspring 

 after the manner of female quadrupeds j just as 

 bats connect mammals again with birds ; and just 

 as those comical little creatures, the armadillos, 

 connect, still once more, the mammalia with the 

 reptilian races; so among plants do certain 

 strange organisms stand midway between the es- 

 pecially great and obvious classes, and constitute 

 the bridges whereby all things are maintained as a 

 unity. The Conifers, to which the members of the 

 yew-tree family stand as a kind of appendix, have 

 for one of their own ennobling functions this very 

 duty of associating forms otherwise unconnected. 

 The stems, the branches, the style of growth, the 

 longevity, the beautiful timber of the yew, link it 

 at once, and indisputably, to the foresters over 

 which the cedar presides, and which are to oak 

 and beeches just what opulent islands are to the 

 adjacent continents. The flowers, on the other 

 hand, point a different way, and when we take that 

 curious Japanese member of the yew-tree group 

 called the Salisburia, the leaves are, on a great 



