366 Bibliography. 



these last mentioned plants may seem to differ from the multitude of 

 common grasses, the disciplined eye of the botanist perceives at a 

 glance that they all belong to the same family ; and indeed, so emi- 

 nently natural is the whole tribe, that is, so strong is the general re- 

 semblance in the characters and habits of its members, that superficial 

 observers, finding it so much easier to adopt, than to verify [correct ?] 

 the crude notions of the vulgar, have actually supposed several species 

 to be continually and reciprocally changing into each other ! It is a 

 curious circumstance in the history of this vulgar error, that in former 

 times, when the occult sciences flourished, the peasantry of Europe 

 imagined all our cultivated small grains to be subject to this kind of 

 transmutation ; that wheat was often changed, first into rye, then into 

 barley, from barley into ray-grass or Lolium, from Lolium to Bromus or 

 cheat, and finally from Bromus to oats. They supposed, moreover, 

 that by the agency of a fertile soil, the degenerate grass could be grad- 

 ually restored to its original form ; or at least, that it could be brought 

 back as far as rye ! — ' Veteres credebant frumentum per gradus degen- 

 erare in macriori terra, atque Triticum in Secale, Secale in Hordeum, 

 Hordeum in Beobium, Bromum in Avenam et sic per gradus descen- 

 dere, immo credebant et jam semina Bromi vel Hordei in fertiliori terra 

 producere Secale.'* Caroli a Linne, Amcenitates Academicje, 

 Tom. V. — Even in our own enlightened age and country, as we are 

 wont to phrase it, there are yet many persons strongly tinctured with 

 the notion, that wheat is frequently transmuted into Bromus, or cheat ; 

 though I have not met with any so full in the faith as to believe that 

 they can bring the degenerate offspring back again to its pristine state. 

 It is remarkable, also, that this obsolete notion, so entirely exploded 

 among scientific naturalists, has lately found an advocate in a gentle- 

 man of some pretensions as a geologist, and who has, more recently, 

 acquired considerable notoriety by his researches concerning territorial 

 limits As that gentleman has been so astute in detecting the muta- 



* To continue the quotation : — " Duravit h33c opinio, quamdiu plantae earum- 

 que floras conspiciebantur e longinquo et fugilivis occulis ; postquam vero Mal- 

 pighius, Tournefortius, et alii armatis occulis inspiciebant, describebant, ct deline- 

 abant florum partes, etiam minutissimas, eum earum differentiis, et ex his planta- 

 rum genera constituebant diversissima, ex fructificationibus seque diversis prog- 

 nata, obmutuit hsec opinio. Differunt enim inter se haec dicta Cerealia seu Gram- 

 ina ut Ovis, Cervus, et Camelus, nee unica pars figura et proportione convenit, 

 sed seque diversa sunt generum structura hsec gramina, ac in sua specie constanter 

 uniformia. Q,ui potest concipere Hoedum progenerari a Lepore, Cervum a Ca- 

 mclo, ille etiam solus capiat Secale ex Avena aut Hordeo prodire. Sic cascu- 

 timus luce meridiana, ut talpae in suo domo, dura nolumus exire et apertis occulis 

 intueri naturam."— 2Vansmwte«io Frumentum; Jlmxn. Acad. 5, p. 116. 



