VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIVE, 



br butterdy, collects it while on the wing, fluttering from flower to flower^ 

 and all the while humming its simple accent of pleasure. Its tongue, like 

 that of many insects, is missile. When taken it expires instantly ; and 

 after death, on account of its diminutive size, the elegance of its shape, and 

 the beauty of its plumage, it is worn by the Indian ladies as an ear-ring. 



Such being the perplexity and seeming confusion that extend througli 

 the whole chain of animal life, it is not to be wondered at that we should 

 at times meet with a similar embarrassment in distinguishing between ani- 

 mal life and plants, and between plants and minerals. 1 gave a cursory 

 glance at this subject in our last lecture, and especially in regard to that 

 extraordinary division of organized substances which, for want of a better 

 term, we continue to denominate zoophytes ; many of which, as, for ex- 

 ample, various species of the alcyony and madrepore, bear a striking 

 resemblance to crystals, and other mineral concretions ; while great num- 

 bers of them, and particularly the corals, corallines, and some other species 

 of alcyony, as the sea-fig, sea-quince, pudding-weed, and above all the 

 stone-lily, (which last, however, is now only found in a petrified state,) 

 have the nearest possible approach to a vegetable appearance. Whence, as 

 i have already observed, among the earlier naturalists, who expressly direct- 

 ed their attention to these substances, some regarded them as minerals, and 

 others as vegetables ; and it is not till of late years, only, indeed, since it 

 has been ascertained that the chemical elements they give forth on decom- 

 position are of an animal nature, that they haVe been admitted into the 

 animal kingdom. 



Among plants, in like manner, we often meet with instances of individual 

 species that are equally doubtful, not only as to what kind, order, or class 

 of vegetable existence they belong, but even as to their being of a vegeta- 

 ble nature of any kind, till their growth, their habits, and their composition 

 are minutely examined into. But independently of these individual cases, 

 we also perceive, in the general principle of action in animal hfe, that the 

 more it is investigated, the more it is calculated to excite our astonishment, 

 an 1 to indicate to us, so far as relates to the subordinate powers of the 

 animal frame, the application of one common system to both, and to de- 

 monstrate one common derivation, from one common and Almighty Cause. 

 Having, therefore, in our last lecture, submitted to your attention a brief 

 outhne of the structure of plants, 1 shall now proceed to point out a few 

 of these general resemblances, and shall endeavour to select those which 

 are either most curious or most prominent. ^ 



Plants, then, like animals, are produced by ordinary generation ; and 

 though we meet with various instances of production by the generation of 

 buds and bulbs, or of slips and off*sets, the parallelism, instead of being 

 hereby diminished, is only drawn the closer : for we meet with just as 

 many instances of the same varieties of propagation among animals. Thus 

 the hydra, or polype, as it is more generally called, the asterias, and several 

 species of the leech, as the hirudo viridis^ for example, are uniformly pro^ 

 pagated by lateral sections, or pullulating slips or offsets ;t while almost 

 every genus of zoophytic worms is only capable of increase by buds, bulbSc, 



* Consult also Mr. Knight's article, Phil. Trans. 1810, part ii. p. 179—181. 



t Thus Aristotle, upon a subject which is generally supposed to be of modern discoverj^ 

 'Slarep yap ra ([)VTa kui ravra (scilicet) evTOfxa ^laipovii&va dvvarai ^tjv, " For, like plants, SUCh 

 insects also maintain life, after slips or cuttings." Hist. Anim. lib. iv. ch, 8. 



See a variety of Other curious instances in the author's trasslatios of I^ucrstiasj lote k<o 

 h.: ii yer. 880, 



