Studies of nature (Volume 1).

  • Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 1737-1814. Etudes de la nature. English
Date:
1808
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of nature (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of them. Many others after him, and, among the rest, Robert Hook^ have seen, in one drop of water, as small as a grain of millet, some 10, others 30, and some as far as 45 thousand. Those who know not how far the patience and sagacity of an Observer can go, might, perhaps, call in question the accuracy of these obscrv^ations, if Lyonnet^ who relates them in Lesser^ Theology of Insects,* had not demonstrated the possibility of it, by a piece of mechanism abundantly simple. We are cer- tain, at least, of the existence of those beings whose different figures have actually been drawn. Others are found, whose feet are armed with claws, on the body of the fly, and even on that of the flea. It is credible, then, from analogy, that there are animals feeding on the leaves of plants, like the cattle in our meadows, and on our mountains ; which repose under the shade of a down imperceptible to the naked eye, and which, from goblets lormed like so many suns, quaff nectar of the colour of gold and silver. Each part of the flower must present to them, a spectacle of which we can form no idea. The yellow an- therce] of flowers, suspended by fillets of white, exhibit to their eyes, double rafters of gold in equilibrio, on pillars fairer than ivory; the corolla^ an arch of unbounded magnitude, embel- lished with the ruby and the topaz; rivers of nectar and ho- ney ; the other parts of the floweret, cups, urns, pavilions, domes, which the human Architect and Goldsmith have not yet learned to imitate. I do not speak thus from conjecture: for having examined, one day, by the microscope, the flowers of thyme, I distin- * Book n. See the last note. t Wlierever Saint-Piei-re adopts tlie Latin words anthera, anther, I would prefer the words anthers, anther, as being; at least equally elegant, and more agrccahle to the g;onius of the English lang'uag'e. In like manner, I prefer pistil, and pistils, to pistilltim^SiX\d pistilla. But not being the translator of the Studies, I do not make any change in this part of t!ie author's text. Indeed, with the text, I have taken no liberty whatever, except in two or three in- stances, where I have made a slight alteration in the names of some of the plants. Thus I have changed mugnoUum to magnolia^ by which apellation it is known in all die books of botany. Li regard to the word fillets, it would be better to riad filaments. This word, formed from the Latin//umen/K/n, a thread, is now adopted in the English books of botany, apd even begins to It: used in familiar conversation —B S H
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