I50 



Marvels of the Universe 



we are dealing with a world completely dead. It is possible that beings of a different order to 

 ourselves people the subterranean regions (or should we i-ather say sublunary?), the last vestiges 

 of a life that once on a time was vigorous and flourishing. 



The moon is not only a celestial mirror which reflects the light of the sun to us. She 

 relates, for our ej^es to see, the history of an earth; a history the more appealing in that she 

 is united to our own world by ties which can never be broken. 



I'h'UD hy p< 



MOUNT TYCHO. 



Tycho is. perhaps, the best-known crater on the Moon ; but a 



"crater" in the Moon is a different formation to that of the Earth. It is 



the centre of an enormous bubble which has burst and left a circular 

 chain of mountains to mark the place of the upheaval. 



nothing 



more than a dense white clump of 



VEGETABLE SHEEP 



BY EDW.\RD STEP, F.L.S. 



So numerous are the instances afforded 

 b\- plant life -of counterfeit resem- 

 blances to animal and other forms 

 that a book might easily be filled with 

 an account of them. In quite recent 

 pages of the present work we have 

 already dealt with several of them 

 — vegetable steaks, vegetable candles 

 — and there are vegetable cows that 

 give milk, vegetable butter, vege- 

 table bread, vegetable putt\', and so 

 forth. Some of these names are given 

 on account of the vegetable in question 

 serving as an actual substitute for the 

 animal product ; in other cases they 

 niereh' indicate an appearance that is 

 deceptive, and may even at times 

 sive rise to feelings of annoyance with 

 Dame Nature for having so successfully 

 hoaxed us. Of this nature is the 

 \'egetable Sheep. 



The shepherd on the upland 

 pastures of New Zealand ma}' see 

 afar off, resting on some rocky ridge, 

 a sheep or group of sheep that refuse 

 to come at his call when he is shifting 



He 

 but 



it is not until he has got quite close 

 that he discovers he has been de- 

 ceived by appearances. The supposed 

 vegetation — the Raoulia, or \''egetable 



the flock to a new feeding-ground, 

 climbs a long distance after them 



sheep 

 Sheep. 



The plant is a member of the huge daisy family, and is near akin to that section of it 

 known as everlasting flowers. In order to counteract the influence of the winds that sweep 

 over its usual exposed places of growth, its branches divide into innumerable short twigs, 

 and when these become clothed with small woolly leaves, j'ou have a dense tuft of tightly 

 packed vegetation as shown in our photograph. Our example, separated from its natural 

 surroundings, might be mistaken at first glance for a mass of rock, it is so compact. If 



