VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE. 



in every order of worms we meet with some instances that naturally appertain 

 to the latter, while almost every genus and species of the zoophytic order, 

 its millepores, madrepores, tubipores, gorg-onias, isises, corallines, and 

 sponges, can only be included under it. Plants, on the contrary, are for the 

 most part stationary, yet there are many that are fairly entitled to be re- 

 garded as locomotive or migratory. The natural order senticos^, the icosan- 

 DRiA POLYGYNIA of the scxual systcm, offers us a variety of instances of which 

 the fragaria or strawberry genus may be selected as a familiar example. 

 The palmate, the testicular, and the premorse rooted tribes afford us similar 

 proofs : — many of these grow from a new bulb, or knob, or radicle, while the 

 old root, of whatever description it may be, dies away; in consequence of 

 which we can only conclude that the vital principle of the plant has quitted 

 an old, dilapidated, and ruinous mansion, to take possession of a new one. 

 Insomuch that were a person, on the point of travelling to the East Indies, to 

 plant the root of an orchis,* or a scabious,f in a particular spot in his garden, 

 and to search for it in the same spot on his return home, he would be in no 

 small degree disappointed ; and if he were to remain abroad long, he must 

 carry his pursuit to half an acre's distance, for thus far would some of these 

 roots perhaps have travelled in a few years. 



• The male valisneria sails from shore to shore over the water in pursuit of 

 his female. And a multitude of sea-plants float through the ocean, and having 

 plenty of food wherever they go, send out no roots in order to search for it. 



Plants, like animals, have a wonderful power of maintaining their proper 

 temperature, whatever be the temperature of tlie atmosphere that surrounds 

 them ; and hence occasionally of raising the thermometer, and occasionally 

 of depressing it. Like animals, too, they are found to exist in most astonish- 

 ing degrees of heat and cold, and to accommodate themselves accordingly. 

 Wherever the interest or curiosity of man has led him into climates of the 

 highest northern latitudes ; wherever he has been able to exist himself, or to 

 trace a vestige of animal l3eing around him ; there, too, has he beheld plants 

 of an exquisite beauty and perfection : perfuming, in many instances, the 

 dead and silent atmosphere with their fragrances, and embellishing the barren 

 scenery with their corols. 



It is said that animals of a certain character, the cold-blooded and amphi- 

 bious, have a stronger tenacity to life than vegetables of any kind. But the 

 assertion seems to have been hazarded too precipitately; for admitting that 

 the common water-newt| has been occasionally found imbedded in large 

 masses of ice, perfectly torpid and apparently frozen; and that the common 

 eel,^ when equally frozen and torpified, is capable of being conveyed a thou- 

 sand miles up the country, as from St. Petersburgh, for example, to Moscow, 

 in which country, we are told, it is a common practice thus to convey it ; and 

 that both, on being carefully thawed, may be restored to as full a possession 

 of health and activity as ever ; yet the torpitude hereby induced can only be 

 compared to that of deciduous plants in the winter months ; during which 

 season we all know that, if proper care be exercised, they may be removed 

 to any distance whatever without the smallest inconvenience. 



Plants, again, are capable of existing in very high degrees of heat. M. 

 Sonnerat found the vitex agnus castus, and two species of aspalathus, on the 

 banks of a thermal rivulet in the island of Lucon, the heat of which raised the 

 thermometer to 174° of Fahrenheit and so near the water, that its roots 

 swept into it. Around the borders of a volcano in the isle of Tanna, where 

 the thermometer stood at 210°, Mr. Forster found a variety of flowers flou- 

 rishing in the highest state of perfection ; and confervas, and other water- 

 plants, are by no means unfrequently traced in the boiling springs of Italy, 

 raising the thermometer to 212° or the boiling point. 



Animals are capable of enduring a heat quite as extreme. Air has often 

 been breathed by the human species with impunity at 264°. Tillet mentions 



• Orchis morio, or latifolia. 

 X Lacerta aquatica. 



G 



t Scabiosa snccisa, or devil's bl* 

 ^ MurjEiia ansuUla. 



