ISO 



On the Relations/tip existing [no. 4, newseries, 



the various accretions, as they disclose no appreciable disparity in 

 structure to account for the dissimilarity of their products, must 

 therefore possess some special endowment or quality, whereby they 

 are enabled to make a selection of material. The mode in which 

 the gland as a whole is constructed can have no direct influence 

 in this respect, for secretions are vicarious, and the same gland as- 

 sumes different forms in different grades of the animal kingdom. 

 We have not space to compare the secretions of the two kingdoms, 

 and would merely insist on the similarity of secreting structures 

 in both, and the mysterious faculty that these possess of selecting 

 certain substances, and only these during health, from the circulat- 

 ing fluid. 



Thus through all the functions of organic life, there exists 

 between the animal and plant a wonderful consanguinity. In 

 both we find a variety of processes instituted with a view to the 

 same results, and performed by means of structures identical in 

 the plan of their conformation. There are still however other re- 

 lations, equally strange, existing between the two kingdoms ; and 

 these are perhaps more directly practical in their bearings than 

 those already noticed. The great Creator of the universe, has es- 

 tablished a fixed Geographical distribution of the varieties of the 

 animal and plant, that cannot be departed from without incurring 

 the risk of disease or even death. The Esquimaux enjoys perfect 

 health, living in his snow-hut and feeding upon raw flesh, the sup- 

 ply of which is far from regular or abundant; a mode of life that 

 would, to say the least of it, be dangerous to any native of a tem- 

 perate climate, and death to any member of an intertropical race. 

 On the same inhospitable shores of the frigid zone, we find a scan- 

 ty flora of Saxifragaceae, Salices and Cochleariae, not one of which 

 has ever been removed to a milder climate with impunity. Still 

 more impossible would it be to transplant ano to adorn with our Mag- 

 nolias, Camelliese or Palmse, the ice-bound coasts of Labrador or 

 Greenland ; or to exchange for the Lion and Tiger of the one re- 

 gion, the fiercer and more powerful White Bear of the other. 



Early in the summer of 1852, a dog and bitch only a few months 

 old were picked up by me on the shores of Melville Bay in about 

 75° N. Latitude, Both were in good health so long as we remain- 



