45 
able, these little animals are thus enabled to leap 
upon water. Another is named by Latreille smin- 
thurus. Amongst mollusca, the Gordius, the lum- 
bricus, the tzenia, the Argonauta, the helix, may be 
contrasted with the oyster, the muscle, and the me- 
dusz, or sea-bladders. So amongst plants, nume- 
rous climbers, as peas, vines, the clematis, &c. throw 
out tendrils and claspers, and some send downward 
from their height”, the summits of trees, long shoots 
to reach the ground, to take fresh root and reascend. 
These may be contrasted, as above, with the cactus 
meloe, with truffles and puff-balls. 
Wings. 
Undoubtedly, had it pleased the Creator, the 
mammalia might have been generally inhabitants 
of the waters, as whales and seals, or might have 
moved through the air, as bats. These possibilities 
are evinced in some species of every class. The 
class mammalia has its bat. Aves are, some, with- 
out the means of flight, as the struthiones and apte- 
nodytes. Fish have their exoccetus volitans*; am- 
sometimes a cat, is so constructed as to produce a similar spring 
by the elastic force of twisted catgut. 
2 'The clusia rosea is a tree growing on the summits of other 
trees, (Mirbel.) The roots descend, and often twist together so 
as to form a case for the sustaining stem. 
4 Bishop Heber, just entering between the Tropics, thus notices 
the flying fish: ‘The flocks in which they skim along the sur- 
face of the waves gives them so much the appearance of water- 
wagtails, that a repeated and attentive view is required to con- 
vince a stranger of their actual fishhood.” Letters, by Mrs. Heber. 
Walsh, in his Notices of Brasil, says, “‘ The flying fish is dis- 
