them, by means of which they float through the air, and are carried by the wind to great lengths. And thus, too, the pods of the broom and furze are furnished with an elastic spring, which, on being acted on by the heat, forcibly ejects the seed, and with a considerable report, to a distance from the spot. 'Who,' says Sir J. E. Smith, 'has not listened in a calm and sunny day to the crackling of furze bushes, caused by the explosion of these little elastic pods, or watched the down of innumerable seeds floating on the summer breeze, till they are overtaken by a shower, which, moistening their wings, stops their further flight, and at the same time accomplishes its final purpose by immediately promoting the germination of each seed in the moist earth? How little are children aware, as they blow away the seeds of the dandelion, or stick burs in sport upon each other's clothes, that they are fulfilling one of the great ends in nature?' The ocean itself serves to waft the larger kinds of seeds from their native soil to far distant shores. While in ordinary cases, also, plants drop and disperse their seeds in dry weather only,-which is just the kind of weather most favourable to its success, for the seed, according to the farmer's adage, 'loves a dry bed,'-there are some plants, natives of arid deserts, which act according to a different economy. Thus, the cup of one plant of the desert has springs to close in dry weather, and to open only in the coming of moisture. Thus, also, the seed-vessel of the rose of Jericho is rolled by the winds along the wilderness until it meets with a moist spot, and then, but not till then, it opens and parts with its seeds. How wonderful all this arrangement and contrivance!

Here is not the footprint of blind chance, but the finger of God."

"With such unerring skill does Nature fling
All seeds abroad, blow them about in winds,
Innumerous mix them with the nursing mould,
The moistening current, and prolific rain."

The wonders of vegetable economy which we have pointed out are a very small selection. Multitudes more may be found in the skin, bark, bulbs, tendrils, thorns, and other organs and parts of plants; in the sprouting of seeds, the growth of roots and stems, the development of buds and flowers, the irritability of leaves, and the all-pervading and diversified display of the vegetable vital force; in the characters, classes, adaptations, and distribution of the woody matters, starchy matters, sugary matters, gums, resins, oils, acids, salts, and other secretions of plants; in the relations of the vegetable kingdom to geography, to climate, to soils, to weather, and to the mighty and manifold influences of cultivation; and in the subordination of certain great classes of plants to one another's uses, the subordination of still greater ones, in multitudes of ways, to the uses of animals, and the subordination of all, immediately or remotely, and morally as well as physically, to the uses of man. Most distinctly and gloriously, in all these respects, in all plants, and in all things which concern them, may be seen the fingerprints of God.

"He inspires

Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands

The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth.
Happy who walks with him! whom what he finds
Of flavour or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful or grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak,
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a present God."

CHAPTER XIV.

ANIMALS.

SILICIOUS-COATED ANIMALCULES-BLOOD-LIKE SPOTS ON HUMAN FOOD -OTHER ANIMALCULES-ZOOPHYTES-SPONGES

CORALLINES AND

CORAL-ROCKS-ANIMAL-FLOWERS -SEA-NETTLES ENTOZOONS

WORMS-INSECTS THE TRANSFORMATIONS, COMBINATIONS, AND INSTINCTIVE SKILL OF INSECTS-ANTS-APHIDES-CRUSTACEANS—

MOLLUSCS-MOLLUSC-SHELLS-CUTTLES-FISHES-FLAT-FISHES

ELECTRIC-FISHES-REPTILES-TRANSFORMATION OF FROGS-SHELL OF THE TORTOISE-CONFORMATION, BEAUTY, AND CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS SPECIMEN INSTANCES OF BIRDS CHARACTERS AND CLASSES OF MAMMALS.

INCONCEIVABLE numbers of minute organised beings, consist of small clusters of single elementary cells. Two vast families inhabit respectively fresh water and salt water; and are regarded by some naturalists as plants, and by others as animals. These are so surpassingly small that millions could be contained within the space of one cubic inch; and yet they have aggregately made a far greater figure in the world than all elephants and whales. They exhibit striking mathematical outlines,-circles, triangles, and parallelogrammes; and have often a most elaborately sculptured surface. All, in the course of development, abstract silica from water, and form it into a coat of flint; and many display transparencies and tintings as beautiful as the alternations of clear and stained glass. Every cell seems to be vital ether within and flinty

membrane without, in some such way as every oyster or other mollusc is pulpy flesh within and limestone shell without. A cell multiplies its species first by prolonged contact with another cell,-next.by accumulating a mass of embryon cells in its interior,-and then by bursting to set them free. Some kinds have not been observed to move; but others make constant, regular, and very curious motions. The bodies of all are indestructible by either water or fire; and they gradually accumulate at the bottom of lakes and of the ocean, to assist in forming soil for the use of future epochs of the organic kingdoms.

These creatures are diffused over all the world, and look as if they belonged to all time. They are identical with the oldest known fossils, and continue unaffected by all the changes and cataclasms which have occurred in the earth. "From the first dawn of animated nature up to the present hour, they have never ceased their activity. Extensive rocky strata, chains of hills, beds of marl, almost every description of soil, whether superficial or raised from a great depth, contain their remains in greater or less abundance. Some great tracts of country are literally built up of their skeletons. From their silicious nature, they resist even the strong heat of volcanoes; and their remains are found thrown up in the pumice and dust from the crater. In fact, it is difficult to name a nook on the face of the earth, or in the depth of the sea, where they are wholly absent either in a dead or living state."

Some rare and curious kindred of these minute wonders of the waters have had quite as much to do as the minute funguses with the producing of certain