v 
240 
THE GARDENERS CHRONICLE. 
[Aucustr 22, 1874, 
there a struggle for existence, and what is the 
infallible res ? If one organism were a perfec 
sie to strength, skill, and agility, 
external cpediisions wo uld decide. But this is not the 
ere we have the fact of putag offering itself to 
ormer instance it offered itself to man; 
leavens the vast store of facts that he 
collec e cannot, without shutting sir eyes through 
jodice, fai to see arwin is here dealing, 
ie with imaginary, but with t true causes ; nor can w 
natural selection in periods sufficiently long. Each in j- 
dividual increment ma, what sia Aee e ai 
artling facts of this 
description. Take'the marvellous observation which he 
most readil ly seen, — fr requently visited by nsects, 
1b ie atural 
Selection: es also readily attract the 
hive T i aies oeira uses its own cocoon as 
a comb, and to caer o f bees of intermediate skill, 
endeavouring to show bow passage might be 
grad m the lowest to. the hig Th 
this ually breaks down nce to 
rea that the exquisite arp s the whale could be 
a result of nat select in shirks no 
difficulty ; an pees por e “SaBject was with his 
nown better than his critics 
own thou, ih, he must have 
the w S as well as the strength of his theory, 
Fe aeS ac 
it were, let oe like the 
to-morrow all is —— T late, we must be 
nt for another In a 
This of course would be of oa avail were his objec 
ead of the itabi iani 
o a everlasting. But he 
only the 
solidity of his wo ork, but the preparedness of ‘ie public 
mind for such a rev elation 
SCRIPTURE BOTANY. 
THE WILLOW AND THE R.—Of each of these 
two genera of the Amentiferse ena pecic are un- 
ionably alluded to in Scripture. It is difficult, 
iowever, annie kinds, o eia even 
bluter it be Willow or Poplar that iateko 
icular verses. Thi es of their near affinity, 
of the general similarity of their places of growth, 
and of the proneness part of the ancients to 
economy in the use es. At the outset, for 
example, comes the question whether the one 
on which the ca their 
Willows indeed, t 
sus 
probability pointing to Poplars; y 
r sil further to "perplex x the matter, there appears 
o be no doubt that various trees and shrubs Willow- 
like, but not zeli} and bot tanically Willows, nor 
even amentiferous, were called b 
orebim” or ‘‘arabi 
apple-scented crimson flow e 
Epilo bium hirsutum, is in the vernacular called the 
« Willow-herb.” 
he resemblances between Willows and Poplars 
consist in their being dicecious, and i a the seeds poing 
winged wit with delicate cottony hairs, as occu 
no other members of red Feri The Sicot 
individuals being purely 
reo a aie 
serine 
ng, Sipe the aikin opis it 
becom engaging pastime to note he distinctions, 
cee ihe leit with the pe of the foliage in summer 
nings, to match the partners. Nothing € n b 
more beautiful in a way than a shoot x e male of the 
g 
alix caprea, its well- 
ing catkins powders with gold, and conspicuous from 
afai ; or a branch of the female of the s species, 
f green b e 
chains in a 
wind ripe, the little p 
as do the capsules of the female Willows, and dis- 
charge thei in incalculable abu 
ppens 
biien spheres of the Coltsfoot, and ‘with the silvery 
pyramids of the Petasites, that 
ET Ang Like the baseless “reded of a vision, 
of mere measurement we are never safe. S 
Wie be added, are "alwa: ways arborescent, on 
Aadeenes 3 do not exceed the height of a -A few 
are diminutive, and trail upon the poss as one of the 
_ latter is one of the yane Teatati of the 
— 
smallest, and Deg aps the Het thoroughly arctic 
= bn the t he polaris, 
l ep 
5 
(S) 
=] 
aes 
ge) 
mo 
S) 
3 
an 
MS 
oO 
FP 
a 
in 
O 
°o 
= 
o 
n is compete ept in motion 
by the wind, ape during the stillest possible states 
of the atmospher 
rapes ls sinks the breeze 
Into a perfect c no 
ar 
e hear t as it were 
mage of the c En pa of the spindles in iie 
en A ops e Alcin 
hi n Nature oi thus be more fitt ttingly 
selected for the ep WPs in i ompe: with 
the events narrated in 2 Sam. v. :—‘“‘ And the Philis- 
an 
ulberry, moreover, is not subject to the mo’ 
so characteris of the Poplar,—the sensitive p 
the trees ; and that ‘* Poplar” 
RE k seems to be sustained by 
very day the Arabs call the tree bak, 
gnat or fly y 
the little white-winged seeds, 
the air with fleecy soms can "deny that if the t 
t to b 
in dr 
the water-side 
“ There is a Willow grows askant the brook, 
That shows his hoar leaves in the gl assy. 
Hence the epithet of ‘* populi ae 
ancient poets to favourite streams, — r 
for i cere ge one of the affluents of the Penei 1 
empe. ikelihood, 
ae 
e Sp 
Balsam Poplar 
tad, i ‘The 
| Rates, rh. Lynces, 49 See also 
I 
ey, vii. referring, 
t Od; 
_ nigra, 
y the Giss pei oe = 
