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Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO II. 64 " The Stan1en males, with appetencies just, Produce a formative prolific dust; '\Vith apt propensities, the ·style_s recluse . Secrete a formative prolific juice ; These in the pericarp erewhile arrive, Rush to each other, and embrace alive. -Form'd by new powers progre'ssive parts succeed, Join in one whole, and swell into a seed. " So in fond swarms the living Anthers shine Of bright Vallisner . on the wavy Rhine; 280 T¥itk appetencies just, 1. 271. As in the productions by chemical affinitf one set of particles must possess the power of attraction, and the other the aptitude to be attracted, as when iron approaches a magnet; so when animal particles unite, whether in digestion or reproduction, some of them must possess an appetite to unite, and others a propensity to be united_. The former of these are secreted by the anthers from the vegetable blood, and the latter by the styles or pericarp; see the Additional Note VIII. on Reprod.uction. Of bright Vallisner, 1. 280. Vallisneria, of the class of dioecia. The flowers of the male plant are produced under water, and as soon as their farina or dust is mature, they detach themselves from the plant, rise to the surface and continue to flourish, aud are wafted by the air or borne by the current to the female flowers. In this they resemble those tribes of insects, where the males at certain seasons CAN 'rO II. REPRODUCTION OF LIFE. Break from their stems ' and on th e 1r. qur. d g1 a ss Surround the admiring stigmas as they pass; The love-sick Beauties lift their essenced brows ' Sigh to the Cyprian queen their secret vows ' Like watchful Hero feel their soft alarms ' And clasp their floating lovers in their arms. " Hence the male Ants their gauzy wings unfold, And young Lampyris waves his phu11es of gold; The Glow-Worm sparkl~s with impassi~n'd light On each green bank, and charms the eye of night; 290 While new desires the painted Snail perplex, And twofold love unites the double sex. acquire wings, but not the females, as ants, coccu~, lampyris, phalrena, hrumata, lichanella; Botanic Garden, Vol. II. Note 011 Vallisneria. · A1zd young Lampyris, I. 288. The fire-fly is at some seasons so luminous, that M. l\ferian says, that by putting two of them under a glass, she was able to draw her figures of them by night. Whether the light of this and of other insects be caused by their amatorial pass~on,. and th.us ~ssists them to find each other; or is caused by resptrat~o~, wh1c~ IS so analogous to combustion; or to a tendency to putndtty, as m dead fish and rotten wood, is still to be investigated; see Botanic Garden, Vol. I. Additional Note IX. K 65 |