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Show ! . ~ I . "' ...... __ r ~.. • \ • 304 REPRODUCTION OF ORGANIZED BEING. the action of each year is on a larger ~c:ale than that of the preceding year; and the add1tlons bec_ome gradually greater and greater till about the m1ddle period of the tree's duration, and the_n they gradually become less and less every year, till at last the action ceases, and the tree dies. After that the remains of the tree continue for a longer o~ shorter time in the organic state, but t?ey at last y1eld _altogether to the laws of inorgamc matter, and mmgle with the general mass of materials for new produc-tions. . t r But there still remains the most curwus par o the whole matter, and that w_hich forms ~he grand characteristic of organized bemgs, when v1ewed, !lot momentarily, but as existing i? t~me. Ho~ever simple the organization may ?e, ~tIS so constituted t~at it leaves a memorial behmd It-a mo?umeJ}t of Its living action, as well_as _o~ its m_atenal sv.ost9-~c.e; and thus, though the mdiVtdual y1e~ds to that d1sso- ·. Iution which is the law and the d~stmy of all created things, and yields the more readtly the mo!e numerous that its parts are, and the more dehcat~ t~e operations which ther h~ve to perform, the hfe IS continued. Not that It IS absolutely secure-proof against every contingency; fo~ nature can separate every thing that nature combmes ; a~d as the succeeding race is intrusted to the world m the ~ta~e of an embryo, and depends upon the action of e,xte!nal causes for its development into the matured f?etng; a suspension of these causes, or a change m the mode of their operation, may cause th~ embryo_to remain inactive; and if that happens m every_ mstance the race may perish, either from any partiCu-lar cm~ntry, or from the world altogether. . . Those causes of more than ordinary d1ssol~twn of organized being, whether vegetable. or ammal, are very obscure portions of nat~ral h1story. We are unable to see them in operatiOn, ~nd the dead remains have no story to tell, exceptmg onl~ thai EPIZOOTY 305 they ~ave been living at some time or other. It sometimes happens that trees of a certain species will perish in a district all in the same season. though no difference between that and other seasons C'an be observe~. One year all the specimens of the darkleaved American beech in the plantations of a district in Scotland died simultaneously, while there was no apparent injury to trees of any other kind. Seals have also in some seasons been observed floating dead on the sea in incredible numbers · and their dead bodies were so thickly strewed on ~ome parts of the north coast of Scotland and the northern ~slands that they tainted the air. Many analogous · mstances of mortality in particular tribes, for which no cause could be, or at least has been, assigned, are recorded ; and because nothing is known of the ~eans b¥ which they are produced, those mortali! Ies"are, m t~e case of animals, called EPizooTY, that Is, on the life;" because they, as it were fall on the life itself, without any apparent derana-~ment of the organization, or other disease of ~hich the symptoms can be observed. But there is also a gradual wasting away of races with just as_ little apparent cause ; though that must n~t be ~o~s1~er~d as extending to all cases in which tnbes dimimsh m a country. The wolf is now extinct_ in ~he British isles, and the eagle is rare, exceptmg m the very wildest districts ; both of these have b~en hunted, and besides that, lonely places are thmr natural haunts. Heath, too, has diminished upon the uplands, and rushes by the swamps · but that has been before the plough. ' One of .the most remarkable instances of gradual decay whiCh has taken place in these islands is that of the forests, more especially the pine forests. It has been said that these have been cut down or set on fire by invading armies, or gradually co~sumed by the workman's axe in times of peace. But though reasons such as these satisfy those persons who Cc2 |
