Serape

“ The mold or mildew which gathers on the surface of preserves is a plant of exquisite beauty when viewed with low magnifying power and by reflected light, for what appears to the naked eye only a soft, white, woolly crust, becomes a glittering forest of graceful stems and branches, standing like fine spun silver upon the dark background of the supporting surface. ”

“ Is it not more probable, as in those countries the earth for six or eight months in the year receives no moisture from the heavens but what falls in dews, which every night renew the vegetation, and reinstate the delightful verdure of the grass, that the surface of the ground in many places becomes hard and incrustated with a dry scurf, which pens up the vapours below, until, by the continuance of the rains for some time, this crust is softened, and the vapours set free? ”

“ The sea breeze at this season is cold and searching, keeping the thermometer at 60 degrees and 62 degrees for days; when a lull comes the heat is at once oppressive, and the mercury rises to 80 degrees or 85 degrees, and the heat dances before us almost in palpable shapes; the water all stagnant sends its odor of decaying vegetation everywhere, accompanied by myriads of mosquitoes. ”

“ Hardly has the surface of the earth received the refreshing moisture, when the previously barren steppe begins to exhale sweet odours, and to clothe itself with killingias, and a variety of grasses. The herbaceous mimosas, with renewed sensibility to the influence of light, unfold their drooping, slumbering leaves to greet the rising sun ”

“ And when the heat of summer comes, when cruel thirst is drying leaf and bud, there comes a twilight hour when hose is brought and tiny pots are filled and full libations poured. Then later in the darkness you may walk and smell once more the odor of damp earth, and you can really hear the little thankful noises of the plants. ”

“ We now find about us tree-ferns, club-mosses, reeds, calamites, lichens. There are fishes swarming in the warm seas; a few insects and spiders crawl among the ferns; here and there are toads, newts, and scorpions of curious patterns. One, two, three, four, five ages back we wander, and now the mosses and pines, the fishes and reptiles have disappeared, and we are in the age of sea-weeds and corals, crabs and mollusks, such as have few types in the modern world. And here, in the lower-Silurian, we have arrived at our ancient burial-ground. ”

“ Rank reeds and lush, slimy water-plants sent an odour of decay and a heavy miasmatic vapour onto our faces, while a false step plunged us more than once thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet. ”

“ Towards summer, when the heat begins to set in, serpents of many different kinds, and frequently coiled up together in large knots, are seen coming out from this hole, who spread themselves afterwards over the country, and finding proper food soon recover the flesh which they have lost during their retreat. ”

“ They send root-like organs deep into the mud, where they coil about some shell and there cling fast. Then the stem grows tall and slender, and upon the summit blooms or is developed the animal-flower. Its nourishment is not drawn from the roots and the air, as is that of the daisy, but is provided by the tiny creatures which swim to its tentacles, or are borne thither by the ocean currents. ”

“ In spring, when the sap first begins to be in motion, and the young plant is every day unfolding [Pg 66] fresh leaves or blossoms, it requires abundance of water; as it does when in flower, or when the fruit is swelling. In autumn, on the contrary, when the fruit is ripening, and in winter, when the plant is in a state of perfect rest, very little water is necessary, and much is positively injurious, as being likely either to excite a morbid and unnatural action in the vessels, or even to bring on rottenness and decay. ”

“ Such [3] differences would seem to give us a kind of division into classes, for instance, between that of aquatic plants and that of plants of the dry land, corresponding to the division which we make in the case of animals. For there are some plants which cannot live except in wet; and again these are distinguished from one another by their fondness for different kinds of wetness; so that some grow in marshes, others in lakes, others in rivers, others even in the sea, smaller ones in our own sea, larger ones in the Red Sea. ”

“ Transact. abridg’d by Lowthorp, p. 811.
12 SECTION IV. That Dust was not the original Food of the Serpent, seems evident from the Sentence passed upon the Paradisaic Serpent, but the necessary Consequence of the Change made in the manner of its Motion, i. e. the prone Posture of its Body, by which it’s doomed to live upon Food intermix’d with Earth, dried to a Powder; Dust shalt thou eat, is one part of the Curse. It’s true, Serpents eat Flesh, Birds, Frogs, Fish, Fruits, Grass, but as they continually creep on the Earth, ’tis impossible but their Food must be often defiled with Dirt ”

“ Places which scatter blight and mildew over every herb which is more delicate than a sedge, a carex, or a rush, and consume every wooded plant that is taller than the sapless and tasteless cranberry or the weeping upland willow; which shed murrain over the quadrupeds, chills which eat the flesh off their bones, and which, if man ventures there, consume him by putrid fever in the hot and dry season, and shake him to pieces with ague when the weather is cold and humid. ”

“ Snow fleas lie in black patches like some of those dark, rough lichens on rocks, or like ink spots three or four inches in diameter, about the grass stems or willows, on the ice which froze last night. When I breathe on them, I find them all alive and ready to skip. ”

“ The pitchers of our familiar Northern Sarracenia, which is likewise Southern, are open-mouthed; and, although they certainly secrete some liquid when young, must derive most of the water they ordinarily contain from rain. How insects are attracted is unknown, but the water abounds with their drowned bodies and decomposing remains. ”

“ Thus in summer the plants are not confined entirely to the water from the ground, but are also refreshed by the rain from above.
But if you look closely along these little channels, and especially at the base of the leaf where they join the stem, you will find that dust particles washed down by the rain collect and form little streaks and patches. The air is full of all sorts of dust particles which are made up of every conceivable substance. Many of these minute grains of dust will be dissolved in the water, and help to supply the plant with food. ”

“ One week there is nothing but spikes and buds, then the temperature rises or the wind drops, and whole tracts turn lilac or scarlet. They scarcely wait for their leaves, they are in such a hurry, and many of them blossom like little footstools, close to the ground. ”

“ The sides of ponds and ditches being covered by water during the winter months, in the spring the air becoming warmer and drier, the water diminishes, the decay of vegetable seeds, plants, and all woody fibres enter now into putrefaction, communicating the process to each other, and by the transmission of decomposition from one particle to another, a great number of plants give out various gases to the atmosphere while decaying upon mud, rise into the air, meeting other gases, and then, floating about, they compose and decompose each other. ”

“ Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances, from experiment, that 'the moister the earth is the more dew falls on it in a night: and more than a double quantity of dew falls on a surface of water than there does on an equal surface of moist earth.' Hence we see that water, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to itself a large quantity of moisture nightly by condensation; and that the air, when loaded with fogs and vapours, and even with copious dews, can alone advance a considerable and never-failing resource. ”

“ The presence of fragrance and honey in a diœcious flower may be accepted in the abstract as almost conclusive of an insect affinity, as in most flowers of this class, notably the beech, pine, dock, grasses, etc., the wind is the fertilizing agent, and there is absence alike of conspicuous color, fragrance, and nectar—attributes which refer alone to insects, or possibly humming-birds in certain species. ”

“ There is something peculiarly hard and cutting in our vernal north-eastern breeze fresh from ocean, which withers up the tender spreading leaves of every plant raised from the ground, and placed in its immediate draught. This is occasioned as well by a cold moist, as by a cold dry wind, the new vegetable structure in the developing process, when the tissues of tubes and cells are only in the state of pulp, and all the molecular germs floating into figure, under the direction of vital and chemical impulses and attractions, being very susceptible {147} of derangement. ”

“ In one place he asks: "What is the earliest sign of spring? The motions of worms and insects? The flow of sap in trees and the swelling of buds? Do not the insects awake with the flow of the sap? Bluebirds, etc., probably do not come till the insects come out. Or are there earlier signs in the water, the tortoises, frogs, etc.?"
He found that whenever there was a warm spell during the winter some forms of vegetation, particularly the grasses and water plants, would begin to grow, and some would even bloom in favorable locations, as the skunk cabbage. ”

“ The tree, thus encircled and suffocated by the baneful hold of the climbers, lacks light and breath; the sap flows in scarce quantities throughout its organism and it languishes under the shade of the close tendrils; swarms of insects increase its agony by making their food and their nests of its bark ”

“ They are, therefore, hard to discover unless their hiding-places are broken up by seining, or the like, when the larvae may be seen swimming about.’ This is, no doubt, the reason why these larvae are not more often taken. Anything like a seine net is of course out of the question for us; but masses of vegetation may be readily broken up by vigorously working the bottle and net backwards and forwards amongst them. ”

“ In every country where there are ponds, canals, or ditches, this vegetable growth takes place so soon as the temperature of the water reaches 60° Fahr. As the quickening of the plants extends from above downwards, from the leaves and stalk towards the roots, these expand, and the mud becomes loosened; the plants imbibe carbon and give out oxygen, and this circulation contributes to the loosening and to the rising of the mud along with the plant. ”

“ Do you not remember how the leaf of the jewel weed, or touch-me-not, as it is also called, shines when you plunge it in water? It, too, is covered with fine hairs that hold air. Many leaves shine in this way [Pg 118] when put under water, and always because of the fine hairs that prevent the air from being pushed out by the water. You see the hairs on the bugs serve the same purpose as those on the leaves; they hold fast the air.
Our water boatman breathes this air that surrounds him.
You know how insects breathe do you not? ”

“ Only upon the very highest points do the scattered remnants of the first surface appear unchanged, because they alone were exempted from general flood. Again the sun shines upon it, new seeds sprout, other insects flourish, and fresh showers fall. In spots the old land is exposed ”

“ The parasitic plants of the Tropics are exchanged at a very early period for the evergreen oak, and the deadly atmosphere of Vĕrăcrūz, for the sweet, mild air of Jălāpă: a little farther, the oak gives place to the fir; the air becomes more piercing; the sun, though it scorches, has no longer the same deleterious effect upon the human frame; and nature assumes a new and peculiar aspect. ”

“ I wish to recall to the inquirer that here on our own globe the spores of the algae and other plants of that order have the power of swimming freely in the sea. Still, they are plants—plants just as mobile as fishes. They become stationary only at a later stage of their development. ”

“ Under the shape of very small shells of a dark brown color, these insects fasten themselves very closely to the branches, leaving after them a trail of a blackish dust formed by the sap they extract from the tree mixed to their leavings, the whole of which is covered by the dust spread over it by the wind. ”

“ But at night, from late afternoon to three in the morning, when the life of trees and grasses and ponds ceases for a short while before it begins again at dawn, the air is full of the busy voices of the insect world. ”

“ The gaseous emanations, which are the vehicles of this aroma, seem to be evolved in proportion only as the mould, containing the spoils of an innumerable quantity of reptiles, worms, and insects, begins to be impregnated with water. ”

“ To moisten the dust of which they form their nests, they frequently skim over the surface of some lake or river, and, dipping their breasts into the water, shake their wet feathers upon the dust till it is sufficiently moist, and then knead it up into a kind of clay with their bills. ”

“ There was this further difficulty, that in those districts where the heat and evaporation are great, every place is infested with swarms of flies and gnats, and in such numbers that the light of the sun and of the stars is completely hidden by them. ”

“ It is extremely common in shallow pools, and its favourite haunt is near the shore, where it will lie, almost buried in the mud, with its raptorial legs elevated, ready to seize on any passing insect, and its breathing-tube just pushed through the surface-film. ”

“ And even where the water employed is clear and apparently undisturbed by mud, it always contains saline substances grateful to the plant in its search for food, and which it always contrives to extract more or less copiously as the water passes over its leaves or along its roots. ”