Thus we find, that some plants improve by being transplanted to a country and climate, which would appear to be naturally and decidedly unfitted for it.

The dragon-tree is not only a native of the East Indies, but there is one species in the South Sea Islands; several in those of France and Bourbon; one peculiar to the West Indies; one to the Cape; and another to China. Now all these species, doubtless, sprung from one original stock; and it is difficult, if not impossible, to point out which is the primeval plant; and which is the primeval country.

That swallows could, by degrees, be settled in Europe, and that they could be weaned, partially, if not entirely, from their emigrating habits, is not to be lightly objected to. That they will live throughout the winter in England is evident from the experiment of Pearson; who kept several of them in a cage. These birds sang their song regularly through the winter; and lived three or four years; moulting every season soon after Christmas; and were exhibited in 1786 to the Natural Society.

On the coast of Peru, particularly near the Isle of St. Clara, is the cat-fish; the fins of which are venomous: several Indians, having been pricked with them, lost the use of their limbs, and others lost their lives. It is found also in the Straits of Malacca, and it is far from being of a disagreeable flavour. This fish, then, is found at two places many thousand miles apart; and yet not in the neighbourhood of islands, east or west, by which it may be supposed to have originally directed its course. It is curious, too, that the medusa should be so rare in its latitudinal seas; since there is nothing to obstruct its

progress on the voyage; for it is so poisonous, that none of the fish tribe will venture to attack it.

VI.

Pearls are discovered in several seas; and, being found in the shell of an oyster, no one has yet been able to explain the manner, in which it is formed. The following circumstance may, however, one day perhaps lead to some probable conjecture, in respect to it. At Sydney1 a party, while at supper, on opening an oyster, beheld a fish of about two inches, curled up, in the bed of the late inhabitant of the shell. It sprung upon the table, and was preserved alive several hours. This fish, which was found to be cartilaginous, had, no doubt, destroyed the oyster. When placed between the sun and the eye it appeared perfectly transparent; and the body had stripes of brown and yellow, forming altogether a very beautiful little animal. That this fish, residing in a foreign shell, might, had the oyster been able to destroy it, instead of the fish destroying the oyster, have become a pearl, by some secret operation of Nature, is not probable; but that some aqueous animal may intrude itself into the shell, and there crystallize, is not impossible. And here we may stop to observe some peculiarities of Nature in respect to fishes.

In the Lake Fakonie (Japan), which is surrounded by mountains, and was formed by an earthquake, are the salmon and the herring 2 of the Baltic. In what manner could they possibly come there? In a stream3, which

Sydney Gazette, 1817.

2

Stroemings.-Kæmpfer.

3 Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, p. 498, 4to.

empties itself into the Nile in the Aloa country, is a fish without scales. It is not seen in the Nile; and yet a species of it is found in Asia Minor. The Caspian is insulated, as it were, in the bosom of a vast continent, and yet fishes are common to that sea and the Mediterranean. Seals, also, are in great numbers; and sturgeons are so plentiful, that they sell for 1,760,405 rubles every year.

VII.

The maize and the pine-apple, the papaw and the tobacco, of Africa, are said to have come originally from America and the tamarind and sugar-cane from Asia. But in what manner they were introduced no probable conjecture has been formed. The cinnamon-tree, too, is very remarkable in its emigrations. This vegetable is found in Ceylon ', Malabar, Sumatra, Tonquin, CochinChina, Caubul, Borneo, Timor, the Loo-choo Archipelago, Floris, Tobago, and the Philippine Islands. It grows, also, in the Isles of Bourbon and Mauritius 2: the Brazils; the Sichelle Islands; Jamaica, and Guadaloupe. In 1772 it was introduced from the Isle of France into Guiana; and since that time into the Antilles. Now it would not be very difficult to account for the

appearance of this tree in so many distant longitudes; since, besides those, in which man is known to have had a share, birds might propagate its seed into some regions; and the tides might navigate its roots and even its trunk to the

' Vide Marshall, Descript. Larus Cinnamonum.

The true spice-tree was not introduced into this island till Sir R. Farquhar procured a few plants from the botanical garden at Calcutta of the species eultivated in Ceylon for exportation, early in 1818.

shores of others. But why has heath been entirely denied to the western regions? For with the exception of a dwarf species, found in Baffin's Bay, it is totally unknown (in a native state) in both the continents. We shall be told by botanists, that there is no soil adapted for its culture; and by the naturalist, that there is no animal to feed upon its leaves. The traveller, however, will inform us, that there is in America the very climate, to which it is accustomed; and not only the climate but the soil in which it is accustomed to vegetate; and abundance of animals, that would delight in its herbage,

VIII.

Some animals are wafted by the drifting of canoes. In desert islands where there are no quadrupeds but rats, fragments of canoes have been observed, stranded on the shores. Those canoes were probably the media, by which those animals were conveyed. Many vegetables of the Friendly and Society adorn the Sandwich Islands; though many leagues distant. Islands, situate from the fiftieth to the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, have the same beasts, birds, fishes, and shells, that are found upon the Kurili Islands: and those, from the fifty-fifth to the sixtieth degree of latitude 1, have many animals, that are found on the peninsula of Kamschatka.

Bears, foxes, ermines, seals, and walruses; wild fowl;

Stæhlius' Account of the New Northern Archipelago, p. 18.

* The elk, I believe, has never been seen on any one of these islands. In Europe it is found between the fifty-third and sixty-fourth degrees of north latitude; in America between the forty-fourth and fifty-third degrees; in Asią between the forty-fifth and sixty-first.

the spawn of river-fish, and the eggs of northern birds, are carried to distant longitudes and latitudes by ice islands. Of these islands there are two species;-one composed of sea water; the other of fresh water. The former kinds are white, and have little transparency: the latter blue, and so clear, that objects may be seen to a considerable depth. These are mostly formed on the sides of rocks, jutting over seas or large rivers. They melt in summer, at the lower extremities, by the influence of the sun, and the moisture of the waves below. Thus undermined, their bulk becomes too ponderous for their base: they break; and, falling into the river or sea, float; and being joined by others, unite and form themselves into islands of vast length, breadth, and height. And not unfrequently sail with the winds, currents, and tides, from the arctic circle to the utmost extremity of the temperate zone. Exhibiting, as they sail along, upon a minute survey, innumerable combinations-occasioned by the spray of the sea, the mists, and the snows,—of towns, cities, and villages; trees, and flowers; ruins, and palaces; and myriads of forms before unknown, even to the imagination.

The mountains of ice, which are composed of fresh water, are not unfrequently incorporated with soil, stones, and brushwood; and covered with the eggs of those birds, which frequent the coasts, from which they fall. The

1 In one of the Dutch voyages to Nova Zembla, the captain ascended a large iceberg, on the top of which were a considerable quantity of earth, and forty birds' eggs. It may here be remarked, that museums are very deficient in the eggs of birds. A complete collection of all the known species would be exceedingly curious.

* Voy. of Dutch to the North, vol. iii. p. 46.