6V NATURAL HISTORY. gO^ 



liiey have a direiSt tendency to terrify the minds of men, and 

 to cheridi Ignorance and luperflition. 



We not only read of fliowers, but, what feems to be more 

 unaccountable, of fountains running occaiionally with blood 

 inftead of water. Sir David Dalrymple, one of the Senators 

 of the College of Juftice in Scotland, a gentleman not more 

 diftinguiihed by liis learning and deep refearch, than by his 

 fcrupulous integrity and propriety of condu<n:, relates, in his 

 Annals of Scotland*, upon the authority of Hoveden and 

 Benedidlus Abbas, that, In the year 1184<, « A fountain near 



< Kilwinningf , in the fliire of Air, ran blood for eight days 

 * and eight nights without intermiflion. This portent had 

 ' frequently appeared, but never for fo a long fpace. In the 

 « opinion of the people of the country, it prognoftlcated the 

 « efFulion of blood. Benedidtus Abbas, and R. Hoveden, 



< relate the {lory of this portent with perfefl credulity. Be- 



< nedictus Abbas improves a little upon his brother ; for he 



< is politive that the fountain flowed with pure blood.' If Kil- 

 winning, like Aix, had polTeiTed fuch a philofopher as Peirefc, 

 the rednefs of the v/ater, if ever it did appear, would have 

 received a moft fatlsfadlory explanation. 



Transformations are not peculiar to animals. All orga- 

 nized bodies pafs through fucceflive changes. Plants, of 

 courfe, are not exempted from mutation. What an amaz- 

 ing difference between an acorn and a ilately oak ? The 

 feeds of plants may be compared to the chryfallds of butter- 

 flies. The feed, like the chryfalis, contains, in miniature, 

 all the parts of the future plant. Thefe parts require only 

 time, and other circumftances neceffary to vegetation, for 

 their complete evolution. How different are the feed- 

 leaves from thofe of the plume ? Befide the general chang- 

 es arifmg from growth, plants undergo a number of meta- 



* Vol, I. page 298. 



f A Scottifli village. 



P P 



