Part 29

HEMLOCK (Conium maculatum).

The Hemlock is an umbelliferous plant growing by road-sides and under hedges, and flowers in June and July; it has been mistaken for Parsley, but may be known by the stems being spotted with black; the leaves are of a dark green colour, the upper ones bi-pinnate and the lower ones large and standing on long channelled foot-stalks.

THORN-APPLE (Datura strammonium).

The Thorn-Apple is a native of America, but has become almost indigenous, and is frequently found growing in waste places. The whole of the plant is poisonous, and is narcotic when smoked, like tobacco. It is an annual, bearing a funnel-shaped white flower, the fruit is a four-celled capsule covered with sharp spines or thorns, hence its name.

POPPY, Red (Papaver Rhoeas).

POPPY, White (Papaver somniferum).

The unripe capsules of both of these species of Poppy are narcotic and poisonous, but chiefly those of the White Poppy, from which, the opium of commerce is procured. The leaves are but very slightly narcotic, and the seeds not at all.

HENBANE (Hyoscyamus Niger).

This plant is an indigenous annual growing in waste places, especially in chalky soil, bearing flowers in July, which are of a yellowish green colour and nauseous odour; the stalk, leaves, and indeed the whole of the plant is covered with hairs. It is very narcotic, and is much used medicine; in over-doses it is poisonous.

CAPER (Euphorbia Lathyris).

The Caper is a biennial often found in gardens; the seeds are very purgative, and to some persons poisonous. This plant bearing the name of Caper, many persons have erroneously thought the seeds to be the ordinary "Capers" sold at shops for making "Caper-sauce." These, however, are the flower-buds of quite another plant, known as "Capparis spinosa."

WILD LETTUCE (Lactuca virosa).

The Wild Lettuce is a biennial plant flowering in July and August; it is found growing on the banks of ditches, and is sufficiently narcotic to be called poisonous. The dried juice has been used as a substitute for opium, but by cultivation the narcotic property is nearly or altogether lost.

MUSHROOMS, TOADSTOOLS, AND OTHER FUNGI.

The only kinds of Mushroom which can be eaten with safety are the common Mushroom (Agaricus campestris), the Champignon (Agaricus oreades), and the Morell (Marchella esculenta). Those which are of very bright colours, or have spots on the cap, those with thin caps, or those which are moist--have a film like a cobweb about the stalk, or have the stalk coming from one side of the cap--are poisonous.

Those marked (*) in the foregoing list are acrid poisons, and the remainder are narcotic.

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Out of these three great families of plants, in their almost endless variety of size, form, and colour, it has pleased the Great Author of Nature to form all the vegetation which beautifies this earth, from the lofty Palm--which, from its grateful freshness and the beauty of its structure, seems almost as if possessed of more than vegetative life, to the Algæ, which form "the pool's green mantle"--from the gigantic and "storm-defying" Oak, with its green foliage spreading out far above, and throwing its welcome shade around, to defend from the sun's rays the gentle deer who pasture on the herbage beneath--to the grass and clover, and the sweet-smelling wild flowers at their feet--

"Daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, Or Cytherea's breath,--pale primroses That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength"--

form inexhaustible themes on which to exercise our faculties of admiration, and which serve admirably to minister to those wants which, without doubt, were given to us that we might derive pleasure from their being thus beautifully gratified--themes for the pencil of the artist, who "holds, as it were, the mirror up to nature," and the architect, when he designed his vistas of slender columns spreading out into and supporting roofs of tracery, might well be supposed to have had in his "mind's eye" some beautiful recollection of the arcades of Nature's palaces in the sombre forests, where the twisted trunks of the trees, the fretwork of their branches, and the leafy covering formed by their leaves, supply all the requisites of a grand and lofty temple, fit for the worship of that great First Cause who formed them.

THE ANIMAL KINGDOM.

A, Cyclops Quadracornis. B, Anguillula. Fluviatilis. C, Actinophrys. Sol. D, Coleps Hirtus. E, Vorticella. F, Amboeba princeps. G, Acineta mystacina. H, Oxytrycha. I, Triophthalamus dorsalis. J, Polyarthra. ]

After considering the beautiful covering which a kind Providence has given to the earth in the form of all sorts of vegetation, it will be necessary now to consider for what kind of creatures this most delightful garden was prepared, whether they seek their food in the air, water, or earth, for all these places are abodes of the vegetable tribes, and where there is vegetation there are animated beings; for there is not an animal in existence, but directly or indirectly feeds upon the vegetable kingdom, from the elephant and rhinoceros which devour whole plantations, to the minute animalculæ which float in the air or dwell in every drop of stagnant water, where food in the form of equally minute algæ is found--each possessed of wonderful organs and powers suitable to the kind of existence they lead, for God has often placed life in the most simple as well as complicated forms. Dr. Mantell says:--

"We have been accustomed to associate the presence of vitality with bodies possessing various complicated organs for the elaboration and maintenance of the energies of existence, but here we see perfect and distinct creations in the condition of globules and cells, which live and move and have their being, and increase in numbers with a rapidity so prodigious, and in modes so peculiar, as to startle all our preconceived notions of animal organisation."

And it is in these Protozoa, the lowest of the animal creation, that a perfect similarity of condition exists to those of the vegetable kingdom, they are here upon a level; but arising out of these simple forms, God has created two sets of types or portraits, the members of each resembling those below it in some particular, but having organs which are superior to it; and above these are found members whose organs are of a still higher order, and so on till the one set comprises the highest orders of the vegetable, and the other those of the animal kingdom, in its ranks. But these simple organisms are never developed so as to resemble those placed above them; they each, whether high or low, continue to produce their like, for each grade was a creation of itself and a separate one from God's hands. There have been writers, who would endeavour to make it appear that God only created the lowest and most simple germs, and the circumstances which were necessary to develop them, and then allowed these to act and re-act until a man or an oak tree at last became the result! Were this the case, geology would long before this have shown the "small beginnings" of man; but no! as soon as traces of man's creation are perceived, he is found as perfectly formed and organised as he is now, there are no transition stages of man's existence, nor of any other animal. It is true that the simpler forms of both animal and vegetable existence were created first, but this was in accordance with the state of the earth's surface, which was not at first suitable to the requirements of the higher animals, which were only created when the earth was in a state suitable to receive them.

But when the surface of the earth was still more developed God created man. His last and greatest work; and there can be no doubt that God in His wisdom caused all these changes to precede the creation of man, that he might lack nothing to confer happiness on him, nor objects to exercise his faculties upon.

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Animals are divided into two great natural families, the Invertebrate and the Vertebrate, the former having neither spine nor internal skeleton, the latter having both.