to catch food. When an insect, therefore, settles upon its glands, the tender parts become irritated, the two lobes rise up, grasp the insect, and crush it to death. The sensitive plant shrinks back and folds its leaves upon being touched, after the manner of a snail; and a species of the hedysarum of Bengal has its leaves during the day in continual motion on the approach of night they sink from their erect posture, and seem to repose. Nor is this motion confined to the time when the plant is in full perfection; for if a branch be cut off and placed in water, the leaves will, for the space of an entire day, continue the same motion; and if anything be placed to stop it, no sooner is the obstacle removed than they resume their motions even more actively than before, as though they endeavoured to recover the time previously lost.

The plane-tree exhibits the power of exercising a sagacity for securing food not unworthy of an animal. Lord Kaimes relates, that among the ruins of New Abbey, in the county of Galway, there grew in his time, on the top of one of its walls, a plane-tree upward of twenty feet in height. Thus situated, it became straitened for food and moisture, and gradually directed its roots down the side of the wall till they reached the ground, at the distance of ten feet. After it had succeeded in this attempt, the upper roots no longer shot out fibres, but united in one, and shoots vigorously sprang up from the root that had reached the earth.

The Island of St. Lucia presents a still more curious phenomenon in the animal flower. The plant producing this flower grows in a large basin, the water of which is brackish. It is more brilliant than the marigold, which it resembles. When the hand is extended towards it, it recoils and retires, like a snail, into the water. It is supposed to live upon the spawn of fish.

The tamarind closes upon its fruit when the sun

has set, in order to protect it from the dew; and in Ceylon and Java there is a plant (nepenthes distillatoria) remarkable for having a small vegetable bag attached to the base of its leaves. This bag is covered with a lid, which moves on a strong fibre, answering the purpose of a hinge. When dews or rains descend, this lid opens, and when the bag is full, the lid falls and closes so tightly that no evaporation can take place. The moisture thus imbibed cherishes the seed, and is gradually absorbed into the body of the plant.

Some plants bear fruit on the backs of their leaves; as spleenwort, maiden-hair, fern, brake, pepper-grass, and many species of moss. After the same manner, the Lapland marmot, the spider, and the American scorpion, carry their young upon their backs wherever they go, in case of alarm. The monoculus insect carries its young on its back even in the water; but the Surinam toad exhibits a still more wonderful phenomenon: its eggs are buried in the skin of its back. When the animals enclosed in those eggs burst from their shells, the mother is seen crawling with her family attached to her; some still in the egg, others just emerging out of it, and some clinging to various parts of her body.

If some vegetables exist without roots, there are animated beings, in turn, which are propagated after the manner of plants. If the earthworm be divided into two parts, each part becomes a perfect worm. The head portion acquires a tail, and the tail portion a head. The starfish may be separated into many parts with similar results: and if the polypus be divided into 500 parts, each part becomes a perfect polypus. Indeed, polypi exhibit the most wonderful phenomena, in regard to increase, of any objects in nature; for they propagate like quadrupeds, like insects, like fishes, and like plants. Some are viviparous, and some issue from an egg; some may be multiplied by cuttings, and others grow out

of the bodies of their parent like buds out of trees, and from which they fall, much after the manner of the testuca ovina of northern latitudes.

NATURAL AND MORAL ANALOGIES.

THERE is an analogy between external appearances and the interior affections, strikingly exemplificative of that general harmony which subsists throughout the universe; for infinite are the relations and analogies which objects bear to each other; harmonies which give ample scope to the liveliest imagination. It is from these analogies that the heavenly bodies have been considered symbols of majesty; the oak, of strength; the olive, of peace; and the willow, of sorrow. One of the Psalms of David, pursuing this latter analogy, represents the Jews as hanging their harps upon the willows of Babylon when bewailing their exile from their native country.

The yellow-green, which is the colour Nature assumes at the falling of the leaf, was worn in chivalry as an emblem of despair. Red is considered indicative of anger, sometimes of guilt;* green, of tranquillity;† and brown, of melancholy. The lotust was regarded in Egypt as an emblem of the

"Come, now, let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as wool."-Isaiah, i., v. 18. When Moorcroft was about to take leave of the Lama of Narayan, on his journey to Manasanawara, the Lama took his friend's white garment in his hand, and said, "I pray you, let me live in your recollection as white as this cloth."

t Green, in heraldry, used to express liberty, love, youth, and beauty; and all acts and letters of grace were at one time signed with green wax.

Because it vegetates from its own matrice. The lotus is esteemed sacred in Thibet, Nepaul, and Hindustan. On its bosom Brahma was supposed to have been born, and on its petals Osiris delighted to float. This flower is very common along the countries bordering the Senegal, the Gambia, and the Niger.

Q

creating power; and the cypress has long been acknowledged an emblem of mourning; the swan, of graceful dignity; the violet, of modesty; the myrtle, of love; the tulip, of vanity; the aloe, of constancy; the mulberry, of prudence; the lily of the valley, of innocence; the rose, of beauty; the Fuschia, of magnificence; and the palm and laurel, of honour and victory.

Branches of palms were in ancient times esteemed emblems of mental and bodily vigour, and the white violet of love. The amaranth was emblematic of immortality. St. Peter promises an amaranthine crown; and Milton says the amaranth bloomed in Paradise, but for man's offence was removed to Heaven, where it still grows, shading the fountain of life, near which the river of bliss rolls in streams of amber; while the angels are represented as wearing crowns and wreaths of amaranth.

The yew-tree has been considered an emblem of mourning from the earliest times. The more ancient Greeks planted round their tombs such trees only as bore no fruit; as the elm, the cypress, and the yew. This practice they adopted from the Egyptians; the Romans borrowed it from the Greeks, and the Britons from the Romans. From long habits of association, the yew acquired a sacred character, and was therefore considered as the most appropriate ornament for consecrated ground. The custom of placing them singly is equally ancient Statius calls it the solitary yew. It was at one time as common in the churchyards of Italy as it is now in North and South Wales, where in many villages the yew-tree and the church are coeval with each other.

The palm, the plantain, and the olive have been used as emblems of peace by many nations. Hence Tasso calls the former "the sacred palm." The natives of Australia del Espiritu Santo invited the friendship of the discoverers by holding boughs of

palm-trees in their hands; and when Vancouver was at the Island of Otaheite, the messenger whom he had sent to inform the king of his arrival_returned with a present of plantain as a peace-offering. Branches of trees seem in all ages and countries to have been used as emblems of peace, from the time of Noah to that of Hannibal, when the inhabitants of one of the Alpine towns met him with garlands and branches. "We have planted the tree of peace," says an American Indian, "and buried. the axe under its roots: we will henceforth repose under its shade; and we will join to brighten the chain which binds our nation together."

In nearly all the empires, countries, and islands of Eastern Asia, peace, friendship, and benevolence are signified by the presentation of a betel leaf. In Africa, also, a leaf or bough is emblematic of the same. When Captain Tuckey, in his expedition to the Congo, appeared at a feast given by the chenoo of Embomma, the latter seemed dubious as to the real motive of his voyage. At length an old man rose up hastily, and, taking a leaf from a neighbouring tree, exclaimed, "If you come to trade with us, swear by your God and break this leaf." This Captain Tuckey refused to do. Then said the old man, "If you come with no design of making war upon us, swear by your God and break this leaf." Captain Tuckey immediately took the oath and broke the leaf. Upon which the whole party rose up, and danced for a considerable time, and all was cheerfulness and satisfaction.

Palms were worn as emblems by those who had made pilgrimages to the Holy Land; and the custom of carrying branches of palms on Palm Sunday was introduced into the service of Christianity by Origen.

Garlands of olives are also of high antiquity. It was with one of these that the women of Jerusalem crowned Judith as she returned from the camp of