the greatest difficulties, he planned and accomplished more than all his predecessors, and his works which remain at this day unrivalled, will probably long continue unequalled. The number, situation, and proportion of the stamens were the foundation of his primary divisions. These organs, so constant, so essential to the completion of the flower, so necessary for the preservation of the vegetable kingdom, were happily selected to furnish each of his Classes with an obvious immutable character. The Orders into which his classes are subdivided, are established on a basis equally constant, on the number and situation of the pistils, or on some other circumstance equally obvious and invariable. A Genus is a subdivision of an order, and includes such plants as agree with each other in the form and situation of their flowers and fruits. A Species consists of such as agree in these particulars, but differ in the form of their root, stem, leaves, and other parts.

A remark, which has sometimes been made to the prejudice of the study of Botany, is, that it is a mere nomenclature, tending only to burden the memory with an immense list of names, without imparting to the student any degree of real and useful knowledge. But is it a small gratification, or of small importance, to be enabled to distinguish, at first sight, the productions of the vegetable kingdom, and to refer them to their proper classes, families, and stations? The disadvantages resulting from the neglect of this study, are seldom more seriously felt than in the perusal of those narratives of voyages and travels, which are now so profusely published. In passing through countries which have seldom been visited, it is in the highest degree desirable, that the adventurer should be able to avail himself of the opportunities afforded him, so as to render his labours of substantial service to mankind: but how is this to be effected, unless he be previously furnished with sufficient knowledge to distinguish those natural productions which it may be thought important either to procure or describe? For want of this knowledge, which would enable him to acquaint us in two words with the name of any known plant, and to refer to its proper station every one which is unknown, we have endless descriptions of unknown and surprising vegetables, which either give us no precise idea, or by a long and circuitous track, enable us at length to recognise an old and

familiar acquaintance. A striking instance of this may be found in the celebrated Kotzebue's narrative of his banishment to Siberia, in the course of which he discovered a plant which attracted in a high degree his admiration, and which he has described at great length, as one of the most beautiful flowers he had ever met with. A very moderate acquaintance with botanical science would however have informed him, that this plant was already known to most parts of Europe; and the only doubt which remains is, as to the particular species of the plant, a doubt which his description does not after all enable us to clear up.

The natural history of animals, though in many respects more interesting than botany to man as an animated being, and more striking in some of the phenomena which it displays, yet, in other points, is less pleasing to a tender and delicate mind. In botany all is elegance and delight. No painful experiments are to be made. Its pleasures spring up under our feet, and, as we pursue them, reward us with health and serene satisfaction. None but the most foolish or depraved could derive any thing from it but what is beau tiful, or pollute its lovely scenery with unamiable or unhallowed images. Those who do so, either from corrupt taste or malicious design, can be compared only to the fiend entering into the garden of Eden.

QUESTIONS.-1. How have naturalists arranged vegetables? 2. Give the illustration. 3. What are the foundations of the Linnæan Classes?-Orders? 4. What does a genus include? 5. A Species ? 6. What remark has been made to the prejudice of the study of botany? 7. What is said to obviate this objection? 8. What is related of Kotzebue? 9. What is said of botany as compared with the natural history of animals? 10. What are the names of the twenty-four classes? 11. Of the orders of the first thirteen classes? 12. Give an example of the divisions of classes, orders, &c. 13. How is the species of a plant distinguished?_(For answers to the four last questions, see Appendix.) 14. Look at Engr. VII. and describe the parts of the flower and fruit of the geranium. 18 *

Carna'tion, a fine and fragrant flower whose varieties of colcur and luxuriance are innumerable. Class Decandria, order Digynia, genus Dianthus.

THE infinite variety of flowers is not less a subject of admiration than their regular succession, and equally evinces consummate wisdom and design. This diversity is not discernible only in the different families of flowers, but it is to be seen in the individuals. In a bed of tulips or carnations, there is scarcely a flower in which some difference may not be observed in its structure, size, or assemblage of colours; nor can any two flowers be found in which the shape and shades are exactly similar. Flowers have not only furnished the poets with inexhaustible description, but the philosophers in every age with a variety of moral sentiments. Those who have gathered a rose, know but too well how soon it withers; and the familiar application of its fate to that of human life and beauty is not more striking to the imagination than philosophically and literally true.

The following interesting account has been given by Sir John Hill of what appeared on examining a carnation. Its fragrance led me to enjoy it frequently and near; the sense of smelling was not the only one affected on these occasions; while that was satisfied with the powerful sweet, the ear was constantly attacked by an extremely soft but agreeable murmuring sound. It was easy to know that some animal within the covert, must be the musician, and that the little noise must come from some little creature suited to produce it. I instantly distended the lower part of the flower, and placing it in a full light, could discover troops of little insects frisking with wild jollity among the narrow pedestal that supported its leaves, and the little threads that occupied its centre. What a fragrant world for their habitation! What a perfect security from all annoyance, in the dusky husk that surrounded the scene of action! Adapting a microscope to take in at one view the whole base of the flower, I gave myself an opportunity of contemplating what they were about, and this for many days together, without giving them

the least disturbance. Thus I could discover their economy, their passions, and their enjoyments. The microscope had given, on this occasion, what nature seemed to have denied to the objects of contemplation. The base of the flower extended itself under its influence to a vast plain; the slender stems of the leaves became trunks of so many stately cedars; the threads in the middle seemed columns of massy structure, supporting at the top their several ornaments; and the narrow spaces between were enlarged in walks, parterres, and terraces. On the polished bottoms of these, brighter than Parian marble, walked in pairs, alone, or in larger companies, the winged inhabitants; these from little dusky flies, for such only the naked eye would have shown them, were raised to glorious glittering animals, stained with living purple, and with a glossy gold that would have made all the labours of the loom contemptible in the comparison. I could at leisure, as they walked together, admire their elegant limbs, their velvet shoulders, and their silken wings; their backs vieing with the empyrean in its blue; and their eyes each formed of a thousand others, out-glittering the little planes on a brilliant; above description, and too great almost for admiration. I could observe them here singling out their mates, entertaining them with the music of their buzzing wings, with little songs formed for their little organs, leading them from walk to walk among the perfumed shades, and pointing out to their taste the drop of liquid nectar just bursting from some vein within the living trunk; here were the perfumed groves, the more than myrtle shades of the poet's fancy realized. Here in the triumph of their little hearts, they skipped from stem to stem among the painted trees; or winged their short flight to the close shadow of some broader leaf

"All formed with proper faculties to share

The daily bounties of their Maker's care.”

NOTE. The night-flowering cereus (cactus grandiflorus) is one of our most splendid hot-house plants, and is a native of Jamaica and some other of the West India Islands. Its stem is creeping, and thickly set with spines. The flower is white and very large, some-, times nearly a foot in diameter. The most remarkable circumstance with regard to the flower is the short time it takes to expand, and the rapidity with which it decays. It begins to open late in the even ing, flourishes for an hour or two, then begins to droop, and before morning is completely dead.

Zo-ology, that branch of natural history which treats of animals.
Vertebre, (pronounced ver'te-bur,) a joint of the spine.

Few departments of knowledge are more interesting than the natural history of animals, and the attention given to it in the present age furnishes the best evidence that its claims to notice begin to be fully estimated. In our own country the inducements to its cultivation are peculiarly strong, for our immense lakes, forests, and mountains, have as yet been but imperfectly explored by naturalists, and the little that is known of their productions leads to the belief, that they contain abundance to encourage and reward the labours of science.

The study of Zoology is particularly advantageous to the young, from its direct tendency to cultivate one of the most useful habits of the mind, that of attentive observation of things of common and daily occurrence. Its objects are every where around us,-swimming in the waters, flying in the air, walking the earth, and burrowing beneath it. set provides our food and clothing, another purloins and destroys them. Some attack, and others protect us. Their forms are continually before our eyes, and their voices always sounding in our ears.

In order to treat clearly of the animal kingdom, it is ne cessary to consider it according to some method of arrangement, by which those animals which most resemble one another are connected together for the convenience of description. This arrangement is founded upon their form and structure, and separates them into various divisions and subdivisions, according to their degree of similarity, and the points in which their structures correspond. Such a system of arrangement is called a classification of the animal kingdom; and an accurate acquaintance with the principles on which it is founded will be of great assistance to the student of natural history.

All animals are divided in the first place into two grand divisions, namely, into vertebral, embracing those that have a spine, or vertebres, and into invertebral, comprehending all