LECTURE II. 63 



parts of vegetables and animals ; the sub- 

 stances or joints which connect them ; and 

 the powers which move them ; as if he 

 had thought it proper to define what living- 

 beings were, before he proceeded to show 

 how they were formed, and what processes 

 were carried on in them. Mr. Hunter 

 thought that there was a principle of life 

 in vegetables as well as in animals, and 

 noted the identity of the vital processes 

 in both. He adverted also to the simi- 

 larity of their morbid processes ; to the 

 thickening of the leaves in vegetables, 

 from the irritation of insects ; and the 

 growth of excrescences from the same 

 cause. How extremely beautiful is the 

 nest formed by the increased, but not un- 

 healthy actions of life, for the young of 

 the Cynips Rosae (Linn)? He observed 

 how exactly correspondent to the processes 

 of animal life is the exfoliation of the dead 

 leaf in the autumn. If the leaf and stem 

 equally and simultaneously perish, if a 

 branch suddenly wither, the leaves tena- 

 ciously adhere by cohesive attraction ; the 

 detachment of the dead from the living 



