ty of living creatures, by an increase of their means of subsistence. It is truly wonderful to observe the wise contrivances by which life is sustained, in all its forms. First, from the crude earth springs the vegetable by which food is elaborated for living creatures; and then follow the countless hosts of invisibles, which prey on these, or their infusions, and on one another; and then, rising through numerous grades, in a thousand different forms, and with continually varying faculties and habits, come the various orders of sentient beings, which fill and adorn the visible creation, deriving their food, like their microscopic fellow-creatures, some directly from the vegetable kingdom, others from the bodies of animals. which have died a natural death, and others again by the destruction of living creatures. Such is the law of existence, exhibiting the clearest evidence of wise contrivance, but yet marked in this, as well as in other particulars, with the peculiar character belonging to a world of evils and compensations.

It is my intention now to devote some papers to the consideration of what has been called the hybernation* of plants and animals; but before entering on this subject, I shall make a few observations on some of the general characters in which vegetables and animals resemble each other, and of others in which they differ. Such an examination is not only curious in itself, and satisfactory, as illustrating the remarkable unity of design which exists in creation, but useful to our purpose, as forming a proper introduction to the various particulars which I shall afterwards have to investigate.

* [Mode of passing the winter, or wintering.—Am. ED.]

The first and most important resemblance between plants and animals, is in their possessing what has been called a living principle. This constitutes the chief difference between organized and unorganized existences; and it is only while it exists in the former, that these exhibit the other qualities by which they are distinguished from brute matter. What this living principle is, it may be impossible to say; but that it is something which possesses distinct properties, and performs peculiar functions, the most ignorant are aware. An animal breathes, and moves, and feels, and performs certain actions, for a time: This is animal life. It then ceases to show any of these properties; it lies motionless and insensible; it undergoes rapid decomposition, and is resolved into its original elements: This is death. And something analogous to this takes place in plants. The living principle appears, indeed, under a different and less perfect modification; but still it is there. Although vegetable existences have no voluntary motion, they yet possess certain vital functions; they select and secrete their food; they grow; they expand and flourish: This is vegetable life. After a time, these functions cease; they droop, decay, and are decomposed: Their life is fled.

Both in animals and vegetables, the principle of life is endowed, or at least connected, with a power of repairing injuries to a certain extent, so as to reproduce decayed or destroyed parts. In both, also, there exists a power of reproducing the species. Nor is the similarity less remarkable in regard to a property, the existence of which, in vegetables, was, till lately, but little known,— I mean the circulation of a fluid through every part of the body. That the blood circulated through the veins of animals, was a fact which could never escape observation, although the principle on which this remarkable function depended, was but lately discovered; but it does not seem to have been suspected, till within these few years, that there was an analogous circulation through vegetable substances. That sap existed in plants, indeed, was a familiar fact, and even that it was to be found in greater profusion at one season than at another

but it now appears to be satisfactorily ascertained, that there is a regular and periodical circulation of the sap from the root, through the stem of the plant, to the branches, buds and leaves; and back again through the bark to the root; and that this circulation is as essentially necessary to the life and growth of vegetables, as the circulation of the blood is to the life and growth of animals.

In the manner of continuing the species, too, there are some curious resemblances between the vegetable and animal creation. Besides that the whole classes of plants, like animals, with few exceptions, are divided into male and female, there is another resemblance, which will scarcely be considered fanciful. All the winged tribes, and most of the inhabitants of the sea, as well as amphibious animals, reproduce the species by means of eggs. In like manner, the whole races of plants, from the moss to the tree, with scarcely any exception, propagate their species by means of seeds, which, in many remarkable particulars, deserve the name of vegetable eggs.

Animals seem to differ essentially from the vegetable kingdom, in the possession of sensibility, a property which the Author of Nature has apparently denied to the latter. This quality forms the first step in the scale, by which the former rises above the latter; but, as it has pleased the Almighty to cause the various grades of existences to run, as it were, into each other, we see here, also, a connecting link of the chain, in the wonderful properties of the sensitive plant, with which most of my readers are probably familiar, which, as it were, simulates sensibility, and approaches so near this vital principle, that authors who delight in those theories which aim at confounding the distinctions that subsist among organized existences, have plausibly maintained the identity of the one with the other.

I have said, that plants, as well as animals, select and secrete their food; but there is a marked difference both in the nature of the food, and in the process by which this nourishment is conveyed and appropriated. The

VII.

vegetable, adhering to the soil, draws its food from thence, through the medium of roots, by mechanical action, without volition, without feeling, and without locomotion; and that food is inorganic matter. The animal, on the contrary, seeks for its food by a voluntary action, receives it into its system by a mouth, digests it in a stomach, and rejects crudities by an intestinal canal. Its food is organized matter, either animal or vegetable; the Creator having appointed the nourishment of this superior class to be elaborated from crude and indigestible materials by the organized, indeed, but insentient creation below them. This is one of the wonders of that astonishing gradation of beings with which the world is stored, and cannot but be contemplated with admiration and gratitude.

The view which is presented to us, even on the most cursory contemplation of organized matter, as may be perceived from these remarks, is that of a comprehensive whole, united together with the most consummate wisdom, and beautifully harmonizing in all its parts; and this impression will be found to be mightily confirmed and strengthened, when we come to consider the details.

SIXTH WEEK-WEDNESDAY.

II. HYBERNATION OF PLANTS.-ADJUSTMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF PLANTS TO THE ANNUAL CYCLE.

FROM what has been already said, it appears that the chilly nature of the season is not the only cause of the changes in the vegetable kingdom, which begin in autumn, and are consummated in winter. The disappearance of flowers and fruits, the fall of the leaf, and the general sterility which prevails, are evidently the indications of a cycle, belonging to the constitution of this department of Nature, which corresponds with the cycle of the year, and affords, by its existence, a new proof

of wise adaptation. The effects produced by the sudden occurrence of a tract of frosty and tempestuous weather in summer, compared with a similar occurrence in winter, has been elsewhere alluded to, as illustrative of this principle. But a thousand other illustrations might be given. There is something exceedingly interesting and instructive in this view of the subject. The nice adjustment of organic substances to climate, has already been slightly noticed; and, were this inquiry to be followed out in detail, it could not fail to afford conclusive evidence of the same kind of contrivance with that to which we are now adverting. Every where we should find the productions of the soil admirably adapted to their localities, as to nourishment and climate; and, in the physical distribution of plants, we should discover new grounds for adoring the perfections of the Creator. The most superficial comparison of the plants of tropical regions with those of the polar circles, would be sufficient for this purpose. In the diminutive Empetrum nigrum,* with its well-flavored berries, which forms probably the last link of the descending chain of fruits in our progress to the poles, we observe the same careful adaptation of vegetation to the circumstances of external nature, which forces itself on our view in the majestic and luxuriant productions of the equator.

In the extremes of climate, taken on the average, we have, as it were, permanent summer, on the one hand, and permanent winter on the other; but, in the temperate regions, we have a regular alternation of modified heat and cold, which requires a different constitution of the vegetable creation; and that constitution has been bestowed. We here find the gradual developement of seeds, and shooting forth of buds and leaves, in spring; the vigor and prime of vegetation in summer; its maturity and commencing decay in autumn; its temporary

* [The crow-berry or crake-berry; a small fruit which grows wild in the northern countries of Europe. Professor Bigelow tells us that it is also to be found on the summits of our White Mountains. The berry is roundish and black, growing on a prostrate shrub, with small, dense, evergreen foliage.-AM. ED.]