THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF PLANTS. 125 
process. Though the sea-urchin is thus a vegetarian, yet 
near the fishing stations it may often be seen to feed 
greedily on the garbage of the fisheries, but I have not 
known it to attack living animals. I fancy that its mode 
of life at Tadoussac, where it is found in great abundance, 
may be taken as representing its natural habits, when re- 
mote from places where the offal of fisheries and similar 
matters may be found. 
<< 
THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF PLANTS. 
BY C. M. TRACY. 
ae 
Tuose who study plants divide them into groups which 
they call families. This arrangement both expresses very 
closely the system of nature, and commends itself to the 
student as being at once pleasant to contemplate and easy 
to understand. 
These families of plants are in one respect like those of 
men: they have their distinctive characters, and transmit 
them onward, from generation to generation, with great 
steadiness ; but, as every likeness is apt to be 
by a difference, these, unlike their human- prototypes, 
never intermingle, but keep a lineal succession more pure 
and guarded than even that of the children of Israel. 
_ In countries where the “divinity that hedges kings” is- 
more readily admitted and revered than among us, men- 
tion is largely made of families termed “royal.” By vir- 
tue of blood more pure, or strong, or ethereal, than runs 
in plebeian veins, these are supposed to furnish candidates 
for the diadem, whose claims are to be adjusted only by 
and among themselves, no competitor from without being 
recognized for a moment. Now without stopping to dis- 
cuss the rights and wrongs of this question in the light of 
