NATURAL THEOLOGY. 391 



example which may be given. It grows natural pitchers or tank- 

 ards, holding from a pint to a quart of pure water. Even when 

 raised in this country under glass, they have been known to hold 

 half-a-pint. The plate represents these, with their lids AA, which 

 move on hinges, opening in moist weather, and shutting quite 

 close in dry to prevent evaporation. When the pitcher becomes 

 full, and requires additional support, the hook A behind the lid 

 seizes on some neighbouring tendril, and holds by it. BB are 

 young pitchers just unfolding. This water which supplies the 

 pitcher is secreted by the process of vegetation, and is perfectly 

 pure, though the plant grows in a muddy and unwholesome marsh. 



The palo de vaca, or cow-tree of South America, yields a deli- 

 cious and nutritive milk on its trunk being pierced ; and it grows 

 in the most parched soil, and in a climate where rain is unknown 

 during half the year. 



The supply of fine water afforded by the tillandsia, or water- 

 with, in Jamaica, and by the bejuco, or cissus latifolia in the East, 

 on cutting, is a fact of the same class. The latter plant also 

 twines round other trees, and affords, as it were, a reservoir for 

 their use. 



END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 



