ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES. 
217 
enough to fill each its own branch will be 
developed, and in all cases the bottom of a 
design must be well filled before the plant is 
allowed to go up at all. We have here given a> 
few sketches of plants fit for pots upon a small 
scale, and a conservatory upon a large scale, 
or for the open garden, and we hope that 
wire-workers will fall into our views, and pro- 
vide fancy subjects, of different kinds, to 
supersede those senseless and ugly, because 
unnatural, things, which are not only degrad- 
ing to the plant, but discreditable to the taste 
of the owner. We never think of the great 
round balls, and the flat, large dish-like shields, 
which are produced at our modern exhibitions, 
without being vexed at the absence of all 
sound imitation or invention on the part of 
those who made them, and the want of taste 
in those who adopted them ; and all the fanciful 
things we have yet seen seem worse instead of 
better ; things made to look at before use, not 
as if they were to be covered with a plant. 
Some have even gone so far as to make a wire- 
work coat of arms; and others have grown 
climbers upon them, without a single thought 
of the botch it would make when the wire was 
covered : nobody could tell, and few would 
have guessed, what it had been meant for. 
Here was exhibited an instance of allowing 
the plant to go its own way ; for it had climbed 
from the lion's tail to his mane, and from 
the unicorn's head to the cross on the crown; 
in short, it was a shapeless mass, and even had 
it not been so, it would have been a failure; 
therefore we say, choose your subject well, 
and, if possible, such a subject as shall look 
well when it is only half covered, and from 
that time till it is complete; this done, see that 
it be not spoiled by the wandering of the plant, 
from the outline of the device, for this is very 
necessary in all cases, and in some subjects, 
inattention to this important point would pro- 
duce a total failure. 
ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES.*" 
The modern critics on Natural History and 
Botany, and, perhaps, bookmakers generally, 
are too apt to rely on great names ; and, after 
appropriating their ideas, and dressing them 
in new apparel, put them forth as something 
worthy of the public approbation, by triumph- 
antly appealing to those great names whom 
they have followed as authorities, to prove the 
value of their newly-created volumes. Not so, 
however, does Professor Ryiner Jones, whose 
" Natural History of Animals " is now before 
us ; a work deserving the highest commenda- 
tion ; full of originality and instruction ; 
evincing laborious research, deep study, and 
intense thought. Such a contrast is it to some 
of the manufactured volumes and papers of 
recent years, as to astonish the most profound 
reader, in proportion to the quantity of other 
matter he has waded through. The author 
refers to " great names, " it is true ; but it is to 
show, in the plainest way possible, that " great 
names " mislead the inexperienced, and that it 
is worse than folly to attempt to reconcile the 
absurdities of ages, because they were put 
forth by eminent writers, instead of investi- 
gating and thinking for ourselves. Mr. 
Rymer Jones, in writing his " History of 
Animals," which, we are informed, was the 
substance of three courses of lectures at the 
Royal Institution, has begun at the beginning. 
Much has been said and written upon the 
subject of the precise line where the animal 
kingdom begins and the vegetable ends, and 
by great men too. The great Linnasus, as 
our author reminds us, has written, " ' Stones 
grow, vegetables grow and live, animals grow, 
live, and feel': to be capable of feeling, there- 
fore, was the characteristic chosen by this 
* The Natural History of Animals, Vol. I. By 
Thomas Eymer Jones, F.E S., E.Z.S. Van Voorst, 
Paternoster Row. 
