bisecting a single one with a knife, or where Nature herself performs
the task of bisection. We may consider the polypi in a zoophyte, or
the buds in a tree, as cases where the division of the individual has
not been completely effected. Certainly in the case of trees, and
judging from analogy in that of corallines, the individuals propagated
by buds seem more intimately related to each other, than eggs or seeds
are to their parents. It seems now pretty well established that plants
propagated by buds all partake of a common duration of life; and it is
familiar to every one, what singular and numerous peculiarities are
transmitted with certainty, by buds, layers, and grafts, which by
seminal propagation never or only casually reappear.
[1] The desserts of Syria are characterized, according to Volney (tom.
i. p. 351), by woody bushes, numerous rats, gazelles and hares. In the
landscape of Patagonia, the guanaco replaces the gazelle, and the
agouti the hare.
[2] I noticed that several hours before any one of the condors died,
all the lice, with which it was infested, crawled to the outside
feathers. I was assured that this always happens.
[3] London's Magazine of Nat. Hist., vol. vii.
[4] From accounts published since our voyage, and more especially from
several interesting letters from Capt. Sulivan, R. N., employed on the
survey, it appears that we took an exaggerated view of the badness of
the climate on these islands. But when I reflect on the almost
universal covering of peat, and on the fact of wheat seldom ripening
here, I can hardly believe that the climate in summer is so fine and
dry as it has lately been represented.
[5] Lesson's Zoology of the Voyage of the Coquille, tom. i. p. 168. All
the early voyagers, and especially Bougainville, distinctly state that
the wolf-like fox was the only native animal on the island. The
distinction of the rabbit as a species, is taken from peculiarities in
the fur, from the shape of the head, and from the shortness of the
ears. I may here observe that the difference between the Irish and
English hare rests upon nearly similar characters, only more strongly
marked.
191