3 8z GENERATION. SECT. XXXIX. 2. 2. 



counted millions. This argument only fliews, that the produc- 

 tions of nature are governed by general laws ; and that by a 

 wife Superfluity of provifion fhe has enfured their continuance. 



2. That the ennbryon is fecreted or produced by the male, 

 and not by the conjunction of fluids from both male and female, 

 appears from the analogy of vegetable feeds. In the large flow- 

 ers, as the tulip, there is no fimilarity of apparatus between the 

 anthers and the fligma : the feed is produced according to the 

 obfervations of Spallanzani long before the flowers open, and in 

 confequence long before it can be impregnated, like the egg in 

 the pullet. And after the prolific duft is filed on the iligma, 

 the feed becomes coagulated in one point firil, like the cicatricu- 

 ]a of the impregnated egg. See Botanic Garden, Part I. addi- 

 tional note 38. Now in thefe fimple prod ufts of nature, if the 

 female contributed to produce the new embryon equally with 

 the male, there would probably have been fome vifible fimilarity 

 of parts for this purpofe, befides thofe neceilary for the nidus 

 and fultenance of the new progeny, Befides in many flowers 

 the males are more numerous than the females or than the fepa- 

 rate uterine cells in their germs, which would (hew, that the of- 

 fice of the male was at leaft as important as that of the female ; 

 whereas if the male, befides producing the egg or feed, was to 

 produce an equal part of the embryon, the office of reproduction 

 would be unequally divided between them. 



Add to this, that in the moil fimple kind of vegetable repro- 

 duction, I mean the buds of trees, which are the viviparous 

 offspring, the leaf is evidently the parent of the bud, which rifes 

 in its bofom, according to the observation of Linnaeus. This 

 leaf confifts of abforbent veiTels, and pulmonary ones, to obtain 

 its nutriment, and to impregnate it with oxygene. This fimple 

 piece of living organization is alfo furnifhed with a power of re- 

 production ; and as the new offspring is thus fupporied adhering 

 to its father, it needs no mother to fupply it with a nidus, and 

 nutriment, and oxygenation - 9 and hence no female leaf has 

 exigence. 



I did conceive that the veffels between the bud and the leaf 

 communicated or inofculated , and that the bud was thus ferved 

 with vegetable blood, that is, with both nutriment and oxygena- 

 tion, till the death of the parent-leaf in autumn. And that in 

 this refpect it differed from the fetus of viviparous animals. 

 But, fmce the former editions of this work were published, I 

 have been induced to change that opinion ; as on differing the 

 bud of the horfe-chefnut, xfculus hippocaflanum, as mentioned 

 below, no communication of vefTels between the leaf and the bud 

 generated in its bofom could be perceived, fo that it is more 



probably 



