192 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Lif 



with evident shame and dejection into the common herd. The 

 conqueror is then recognised as sovereign and oheyed. When 

 will men learn to profit by this example of the horse ? B. 



An Unconquerable Love of Liberty. 



" It is remarkable," says Boitard, " that the elephant is not, 

 and never has been, a domestic animal, but a captive who only 

 obeys through terror. However tame he may be, he never 

 fails to escape into the woods to resume his savage life if an 

 opportunity occurs. The need, therefore, arises that on a long 

 march he shall have his driver, or mahoud, on his back to 

 guide him, threaten him, and prevent him from taking to flight. 

 His love of liberty is as great as that of the wildest animals, 

 and in the female elephants it even overpowers maternal love ; 

 therefore, when suckling their young they are never released 

 from their chains, for experience has proved that they will 

 abandon them without regret if circumstances should enable 

 them to effect their escape. D. 



One Essential Condition of Life. 



No place is incapable of supporting vegetable life of some 

 kind ; and although there are districts where grass and trees 

 are never seen, and perpetual desolation gives the idea of their 

 being worn out and effete, as happens in the great deserts in 

 the interior of Northern Africa, even there it is not so much 

 an absolute incapacity to sustain life as the want of springs of 

 water that causes the absence of it. In those sweet spots which 

 have become a metaphor for all happy and blessed breaks in the 

 history of trouble and sorrow the " oases " of the desert, water 

 is present, and vegetation is triumphant. Such an "oasis" was 

 Elim, where " there were twelve wells of water, and threescore 

 and ten palm trees." LL 



The Ubiquity of Life. 



Wisely have the fungi been provided, in the rapidity of their 

 growth, the simplicity of their structure, the variety of their 



