71G ' THE UNIVERSE. 



of horses' hoofs in a state of putrefaction. One little para- 

 site of the same family, the Isaria of the sphinx, has 

 hitherto only been observed on certain nocturnal moths. 

 The chrysalides and larvaj of these are never attacked by 

 it; other species infest them. Unless one possessed the 

 imagination of a Bonnet, is it possible to suppose that 

 nature would uselessly have burdened the air of the whole 

 globe for the mere purpose of scattering seed on the bodies 

 of a few sjiiders and moths; and that there was always a 

 stock ready for the perfect insect, its chrysalis, and its 

 larva ? 



Still more curious facts are known; for instance, that of 

 a fungus never found but on the neck of a caterpillar of 

 tropical countries. It is always solitary on this, and of 

 enormous size in proportion, being often four to five inches 

 high. In this fortuitous case is the air necessarily choked 

 with seeds in order that from time to time one may be 

 planted on a particular spot not more than a square milli- 

 metre (00155 sq. inch) in extent? 



As a particular vegetation is present in every form of 

 fermentation, its germs, according to the panspermists, must 

 have floated loose in the atmosphere from creation up to 

 the time when any new fermented liquor was discovered. 

 Did they rest so many ages unoccupied, awaiting the 

 moment when Osiris invented beer? And even now does 

 the atmosphere, loaded Avith these little seeds, drift them 

 from pole to pole till the Greenlander or Patagonian sets 

 to work to l^rew a few cjuarts of this drink, or till it can 

 fecundate the new ferments which each chemist may in- 

 vent in the silence of his laboratory ? 



If it really were so, we might groan over the fate of the 

 atmosphere ! 



Again, botanists are acquainted with a peculiar plant, 



