NATURAL HISTORY OF QUITO. 619 
many fanciful resemblances one sees in plants. We were lately 
quite provoked to find that Winthrop, with whom we certainly 
never had conversed, had hit upon an idea which we esteemed pe- 
culiarly our own. It was the comparison of the heads of timothy 
to cannon sponges. Many other curious similitudes have been 
observed, nor has man in his architectural and ornamental work- 
manship, begun to avail himself of one quarter of the lovely models 
at all times displayed before him. 
If one makes a bouquet consisting alone of grasses, he will soon 
perceive how beautiful they really are. The panies and herd’s 
grasses are especially lovely, both in the fields, which some of 
them tinge with their ruddy smoke, and in the vase at home, where 
their ethereal delicacy can be more closely noted. 
The gras ses are so numerous that it is impossible to seth even 
briefly to one quarter of them. We can only,give our advice to 
“go and look them up.” 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 
' 
THE VALLEY OF QUITO.—No. I. 
BY PROFESSOR JAMES ORTON. 
a e 
Tue Geographical Distribution of organized beings is one of the 
unfinished chapters of natural history. Much has been done within 
the last twenty years in defining zoological and phytological prov- 
inces; but we are still very far from knowing the precise range of 
species. This has arisen partly from the failure of collectors to 
give exact localities, and partly from the ignorance of home natu- 
ralists, who often confound places hundreds of miles distant. The 
vast collections of Fraser, e. g., are of little use in determining 
distribution, as in many cases the indefinite habitat, ‘‘ Andes of 
Ecuador,” is given, which may mean the Pacific slope, the head- 
waters of the Amazon, or the Quito Valley —three regions quite 
distinct in physical aspect.* On the other hand, those who deter- 
mined his specimens have in some cases located them indiscrimi- 
* term Andes strictly belongs to the Eastern range, and Cordillera to the wes- 
tern; but this distinction is not always observed. 
