528 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 16Q3. 



We may likewise compare the propagation of trees with fish, and find the 

 same agreement. In fine, the egg in animals seems to be for the same use as 

 the lobes of the seed in plants. 



Although I have formerly asserted, that the female served only to afford 

 nourishment to the animalcules of the male sperm, and that plants grow out 

 of the substance with which they are watered ; yet I acknowledge for a certain 

 truth, that a great variety is caused in animals by the nourishment received 

 from the mother. So by a horse and she-ass a mule is generated, which is like 

 neither, but participates of both, differing from the horse, especially in the 

 ears and tale; since the ass abounding in that nourishment which produces the 

 ears, and wanting that which gives a long tale, it must necessarily be like the 

 mother in those two particulars. So from a white man and negro woman a 

 Mestico is born ; and from a large pigeon or cropper, and a small wild hen 

 pigeon, the young are like neither ; the egg of the female is not sufficient to 

 nourish the animalcule of the male, so as to give it the size of its father. And 

 thus plants receive a great alteration from the different soils in which the seeds 

 are planted. So apples brought from France are with us in great esteem ; and 

 whatever care we take in the trees themselves, yet they soon degenerate in our 

 soil; which change proceeds from the different salts they meet with in the ground. 

 And I believe if we could take the embryo plant out of one seed and put it into 

 another, so as it would grow, we should have a new plant from thence, like to 

 neither : as if we should take the embryo out of the walnut, which I shall 

 liken to the animalcule of the horse, and so join it to the seed of the chesnut, 

 which I compare to the matrix of the ass, that it would grow, the plant pro- 

 duced by this union would be a new and unknown tree. 



Willows are usually planted by thrusting a stake into the ground in wet places, 

 yet finding several young ones on the banks of rivers, I judged these grew from 

 the seed. Wherefore in the beginning of June, examining the downy seeds of 

 these plants, I found several brownish particles, not much larger than sand, 

 which the microscope discovered to be their seeds, which are contained in 

 several little violet-coloured boxes, of which in a little sprig there were 75 

 placed by one another, each containing 3, 4, or 3 small seeds, encompassed 

 with a pappous down. Fig. Q represents these seeds of the natural size. The 

 down or pappous part is joined by one common knot or centre first, and so 

 to the seed, and consists of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 small threads, which as soon as the 

 capsula breaks on the ripening of the seed, spreads itself every way, as fig, 10, 

 though before the threads were closed up in one, as fig. 11, by which means 

 it easily carries the small seeds on the wings of the wind to great distances. 

 Viewing these seeds more nicely, I saw that part whence the root has its begin- 



