638 THE SOUTHERN MUSCADINE GRAPE. 
sidered its normal position. To all this, the thumb is the 
only objector ; but mighty as that is in all matters of com- 
mon life, you must already have perceived, by a kind of 
“reductio ad absurdum,” that the less it, and, indeed, the 
whole hand are regarded in our morphological compari- 
son, the less liable shall we be to fall into such extraordi- 
nary and fantastic notions as some of those we have been 
considering. Fortunately, however, man can but inter- 
pret Nature; he cannot change her. His errors die with 
his interpretation, while the facts belong to God, and are 
safe from the interference of man. 
THE SOUTHERN MUSCADINE GRAPE. 
BY D. H. JACQUES. 
CLIMBING the tallest trees, covering and almost smoth- 
ering the smaller undergrowth, hanging over rail fences, 
hiding pine stumps and brush-heaps, or, for want of other 
support, trailing on the ground, one may see almost 
everywhere in the South, from the seaboard of Georgia 
and Florida to the mountain slopes of North Carolina, 
the graceful vines of the Southern Muscadine, and, in its 
season, the ripened fruit, with which many of these vines 
are laden, will allure the traveller at every turn from the 
dusty road. Few who have once eaten this fruit, in its 
perfection, will be able to resist the temptation to dis- 
mount and eat the tempting clusters. 
As this grape is not found (I believe) north of the 
soutl slopes of the Alleghany Mountains, and is little 
known, and often erroneously described, a brief notice of 
it may not be out of place. 
souther 
