354- ANIMALS BETTER 



London, for instance, many intelligent, and by 

 no means illiterate persons, well versed enough 

 in all the science necessary for the conducting of 

 business, and in the common literature and occur- 

 rences of the day ; but who, if you were to walk 

 through Covent Garden with them, and make 

 them make so simple a distinction as to point out 

 all the vegetables there that were produced in the 

 air, and all that were produced in the earth, 

 would find themselves sadly puzzled. So also, if you 

 asked them to point out which are the productions of 

 annual plants, and which of larger kind; or which 

 were natives of Britain and which not, they would 

 be at a loss. In like manner, if the production 

 were a seed, a fruit, or a root, they would not 

 be able to tell you any thing about the leaf or the 

 flower ; and if you questioned them as to the 

 mode of culture, you would find them still sooner 

 at a loss. If they happened to have flower-pots 

 or gardens, and were fond of these, they would, 

 no doubt, be able to say something about what 

 were grown in them, and mention the names and 

 describe the appearances of the favourite and fa- 

 shionable sorts. But take them to a common, or 

 a natural copse, or a tangled hedge, or the sedgy 

 bank of a river, and question them of the produc- 

 tions there, and the probability is that, in nine 

 cases out of every ten, you would either get no 

 answer at all, or a wrong one. 



If the question were respecting animals, the 

 answers would, in the more familiar species, be 

 more ready and more accurate. The motions of 

 those animals that do possess the power of moving 

 from place to place, render the observation of them, 

 a much more palpable matter than the observation 

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