VI.

Some vegetables resemble certain animals in their an nual exhibitions of change. Thus the cork tree renews its bark; and, for eight seasons, its quality improves as the tree advances in age. The marine fan-palm has a new leaf every month; during the same period the Indian bamboo issues a new shoot; and many bulbous roots have concentric rings proportionate to the number of months they have vegetated while the cocoa-tree of the Maldive Islands every month produces a cluster of nuts. Of these, the first, says an eminent French naturalist, is in a state of incipiency; the second is coming out of its covering; the third is budding; the fourth is in flower; the fifth is forming a nut; and the last is in maturity,

:

Sheep, in the same manner, renew their fleece every year; lobsters their shells; and scorpions, serpents, snakes, grasshoppers, and many other insects, their skins. Stags, goats, and some other animals, also, shed their horns; though not, perhaps, at stated periods. The Asiatic hedgehog loses its hair during its four months' state of torpidity; and the peacock sheds its fine feathers in autumn, and renews them in the spring. Hence the peacock in Egypt was esteemed an emblem of the vicissitudes of fortune.

The corn-weevil undergoes its several changes in the concavity of corn. The nut-weevil deposits its eggs in a nut, while it is green and soft. This egg is hatched, when the nut is ripe, and becomes a maggot, which feeds upon the kernel. When it has consumed the kernel, it bores a hole in the

feathers are attached to their wings; and they are endowed with a trunk of exquisite formation.

The pulex irritans issues from an egg in the shape of a worm of a pearl colour. In a short time it hides itself; spins a thread from its mouth; and having enclosed itself in the thread for a fortnight, issues from its confinement a perfect animal, defended by a species of armour.

The lion ant' after remaining in its reptile state from one to two years, spins a thread, which, being glutinous, sticks to small particles of sand, in which it rolls itself up like a ball. In the concave of this it resides for six or eight weeks; and gradually parting with its skin, feet, antennæ, and eyes, bites a hole in the ball, and appears in the form of a fly ;-having a brown slender body, a small head, large eyes, long legs, and transparent wings.

VIII.

The May-bug beetle deposits its egg in the earth, from which its young creeps out in the shape of amaggot, which lives in the earth for three years, feeding upon roots. While under ground it changes its skin every year; and at the end of the fourth digs itself a cell, casts its skin, and becomes a chrysalid. In the suc... ceeding May it bursts from the earth, unfolds its wings, and flies in great numbers round the tops of trees. The ox gad-fly deposits its egg in the skin of an ox, and produces a yellowish maggot. This maggot falls to the ground, burrows, and enters into an

• Myrmeleon formicaleo.

aurelia state; whence it issues a fly of a pale yellowish brown colour, marked with dusky streaks, and about the size of a bee.

Some worms reside under the tongues of dogs; others in the nostrils of macaws; and some in the heads and even throats of Virginian deer. I once put a moth among some leaves under a glass. It deposited several eggs and died. In a few days the eggs, being placed in the sun, burst, and out of them crept insects with wings, as much unlike their parent as a turtle is unlike an elephant.

IX.

Animals are composed of gelatine, albumen, and febrine; formed out of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. Oils, acids, salts, and other substances, also, enter into the animal system. Gelatine is the chief ingredient of the skin, membranes, bones,1 hoofs, and horns2: from a decomposition of which, in return, is obtained muriat of ammonia. Albumen constitutes that transparent, viscuous, substance, which compose the nerves, the serum, and the blood; the curds of milk, and the whites of eggs. Febrine is the essential constituent of the flesh; and flesh and blood are the richest of all manures.

1 M. Fourcoy says, that phosphate of magnesia exists in the urine of the human species, but not in the bones; though it does exist in the bones of quadrupeds.

Black hair consists of nine substances, as M. Vauquelin has proved by analization.-Animal matter, a white coucrete oil, a greenish grey oil, iron, oxyde of manganese, phosphate of lime, carbonate of lime, silex, and a considerable quantity of sulphur.

As the human frame approaches old age the skin, flesh, and fibres, become more dry and hard.Digestion is more difficult; there is less perspiration; the circulation of the blood is languid; and life fades away by insensible degrees.-This decay of the frame seems to arise out of the circumstance, that the carriers of matter for the repair of the vascular system do not carry matter wherewith to repair themselves.

It may here be remarked, that the stone, of which the ancient sarcophagi were made, was said to have the power of consuming the flesh, that was buried in them. This, however, may be questioned. But certain it is, that lime has the power of decomposing animal substances, without permitting them to undergo the process of putrifaction: and M. Mange of Paris has lately discovered, that the pyroligneous acid, obtained by the distillation of wood, prevents the putrefaction and decomposition of animal substances.

The act of converting food into animal matter is chiefly performed by the stomach: the gastric juice, found in which, constituting the chief menstruum. By a process, at once simple and intricate, food is converted into chyme; which, uniting with the bile and other juices, is formed into chyle;-a substance, resembling milk. This chyle is conveyed by the. lacteal vessels into the heart. In this reservoir it begins to form blood; which, passing through the lungs, is modified and perfected by respiration: and, by one of the most beautiful of processes, is distributed by the arteries, and strained into the proper vessels; converting vegetable and animal sub

stances into nerves, sinews, flesh, hair, bone, and every other part of the human machine: as vegetable juice is indurated into amber; and the leaf of the mulberry converted into silk.

X.

Other changes take place in the animal system, which would lead us too far into technical peculiarities. But there is one circumstance too curious to be overlooked in a treatise on changes. It belongs to the ear. For while all the other bones of the human frame increase and acquire strength by time, those, that lie in the cavities of the ears, are perfect in the womb. They may, therefore, be said to have a longer duration in respect to perfection, than any other part of the human body. As to those changes, which are caused by the vibratory motion of the nerves, begun by external objects and propagated to the brain, they are so numerous, and so delicate, that it would require a volume of no ordinary magnitude to explain them: and then the subject would remain imperfect.

All animals are compounded of vegetable substances. For as the sea is the visible Providence, as it were, that sustains, by the medium of the sun and air, all that live; so all, that live and breathe, are compounded of " grass." The hoof of the horse; the horn of the cow; the shell of a snail; the teeth of an elephant; the claws of a lion; the feathers of a dove; the wool of a sheep; and the hair of a camel, once grew in the fields. Even the eyes with which we see; and the ears with which we hear.