VEGETABLE AND INSECT LIFE. 77 



have been devoured, and, thus in spite of the large number and 

 voracity of its enemies, the foliage is generally able to resist all 

 their efforts. 



Week after week the pastures are cropped by numerous herds, 

 or mowed by the husbandman, and yet the grass never ceases 

 to flourish, and after countless caterpillars and beetles have 

 feasted upon the plenty of the forest, it still bears a luxuriant 

 crown, until finally the winter scatters its foliage to the winds. 

 This indomitable energy of vegetation, which not only supports 

 itself, but a whole world of animals, and sets the ravages of 

 centuries at defiance, is indeed one of the great wonders of 

 creation ! 



In all climates we find a harmonious balance between insect 

 and vegetable life. Towards the north, where the growth of 

 plants is confined to a few months or even weeks, they have 

 but few enemies to encounter ; in the temperate zones hostility 

 increases with the increase of vegetation, until finally, in the 

 damp tropical lowlands, the herbivorous insects take the field 

 in countless legions. But here, where the plantain raises its 

 colossal shaft in eight or ten months to a height of twenty feet, 

 where the bamboo grows at the rate of eighteen inches in 

 twenty-four hours, and the same field yields three harvests in the 

 course of the year, an amazing power of vegetation resists all 

 these devastations ; and here, also, the defences of the plants 

 increase with their increasing dangers; for nowhere are the 

 leaves better protected with hairs and spines, and nowhere do 

 they elaborate more pungent juices or exhale more penetrating 

 odours. 



Thus harmony is everywhere maintained between the two 

 great divisions of organic life, and thus firmly established on 

 the laws of an All-wise Power, an eternal order reigns supreme 

 amidst the conflicting interests of all created beings. 



Where we see so much care bestowed upon the leaves, which 

 are but simple individual organs, we may well expect to find 

 still greater precautions taken for the protection of the buds, in 

 which the foliaceous rudiments of a whole branch, or even of a 

 whole plant, are contained. 



A bud is seldom naked ; generally it is invested with a pano- 

 ply of thick scales of a coriaceous or fibrous consistence, and, 

 moreover, frequently covered with hairs or impregnated with 



