146 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
below the internal angle of the eyes, until it is intersected 
by a similar black line about half an inch beyond the ex- 
ternal angle of the eye, thus forming a very acute trian- 
gle, whose basis is on the side of the face. This blackish 
gray triangle, joined to the peculiar sharpness of the face, 
and the line produced by the black whiskers on the sides 
of the nose, singularly increase the appearance of slyness 
and cunning expressed in the physiognomy of this animal. 
The face below this triangle is white, and the latter colour 
is continued semicircularly upon the upper part of the 
throat. The under jaw is blackish, this colour extending 
along the line of the mouth, and passing about half an 
inch bejmnd the junction of the lips at the angle. The 
inner surface of the ears is clothed with short light yellow- 
ish hair; their lips on the outside are blackish gray. And 
the whole of their posterior surface is yellow, which colour 
descends, encircling the neck, and is the only colour on 
the anterior parts with the exception of a white spot on the 
breast. The inferior parts of the body are white, tinted 
slightly in some individuals with faint reddish brown. The 
tail is thick and bushy, and the fur on the upper side is 
pale yellow, slightly tipped with black; the under part is 
rust coloured; and the end entirely black.” 
DISPERSION OF SEEDS OVER THE EARTH. 
The principal of the inanimate agents, provided by na- 
ture for scattering the seeds of plants over the globe, are 
the movements of the atmosphere and of the ocean, and the 
constant flow of water from the mountains to the sea. To 
begin with the winds: a great number of seeds are furnished 
with downy and feathery appendages, enabling them, 
when ripe, to float in the air, and to be wafted easily to 
great distances by the most gentle breeze. Other plants 
are fitted for dispersion by means of an attached wing, as 
in the case of the fir-tree, so that they are caught up by 
the wind as they fall from the cone, and are carried to a 
distance. Amongst the comparatively small number of 
plants known to Linnaeus, no less than one hundred and 
thirty-eight genera are enumerated as having winged 
seeds. 
As winds often prevail for days, weeks, or even months 
together, in the same direction, these means of transporta- 
tion may sometimes be without limits; and even the 
heavier grains may be borne through considerable spaces, 
in a very short time, during ordinary tempests; for strong 
gales, which can sweep along grains of sand, often move 
at the rate of about forty miles an hour, and if the storm 
be very violent, at the rate of fifty-six miles. The hurri- 
canes of tropical regions, which root up trees and throw 
down buildings, sweep along at the rate of ninety miles an 
hour, so that, for however short a time they prevail, they 
may carry even the heavier fruits and seeds over friths 
and seas of considerable width, and, doubtless, are often 
the means of introducing into islands the vegetation of ad- 
joining continents. Whirlwinds are also instrumental in 
bearing along heavy vegetable substances to considerable 
distances. Slight ones may frequently be observed in our 
fields, in summer, carrying up haycocks into the air, and 
then letting fall small tufts of hay far and wide over the 
country; but they are sometimes so powerful as to dry up 
lakes and ponds, and to break off the boughs of trees, and 
carry them up in a whirling column of air. 
Franklin tells us, in one of his letters, that he saw, in 
Maryland, a whirlwind which began by taking up the 
dust which lay in the road, in the form of a sugar-loaf with 
the pointed end downwards, and soon after grew to the 
height of forty or fifty feet, being twenty or thirty in 
diameter. It advanced in a direction contrary to the wind, 
and although the rotatory motion of the column was sur- 
prisingly rapid, its onward progress was sufficiently slow 
to allow a man to keep pace with it on foot. Franklin 
followed it on horseback, accompanied by his son, for 
three-quarters of a mile, and saw it enter a wood, where 
it twisted and turned round large trees with surprising 
force. These were carried up in a spiral line, and were 
seen flying in the air, together with boughs and innume- 
rable leaves, which, from their height, appeared reduced 
to the apparent size of flies. As this cause operates at 
different intervals of time throughout a great portion of 
the earth’s surface, it may be the means of bearing not 
only plants but insects, land-testacea and their eggs, with 
many other species of animals, to points which they 
could never otherwise have reached, and from which they 
may then begin to propagate themselves again as from a 
new centre. 
The seeds of some aquatic fresh-water plants are of the 
form of shells, or small canoes, and on this account they 
swim on the surface, and are carried along by the wind 
and stream. Others are furnished with fibres, which serve 
the purpose of masts and sails, so that they are impelled 
along by the winds, even where there is no current. They 
cannot take root until the water stagnates, or till they 
reach some sheltered corner, where they may live without 
being exposed to too much agitation from winds and cur- 
rents. The above-mentioned contrivances mav enable 
aquatic plants to diffuse themselves gradually to conside- 
rable distances wherever there is a great chain of lakes, 
or a river which traverses a large continent. It has been 
found that a great numerical proportion of the exceptions 
