. The testimony of the rocks; . e do ourselves; and there is neither sense normerit, surely, in churlishly refusing of that ampleentertainment, sprinkled with delicate perfumes, garnishedwith roses, and crowned with the most delicious fruit, whichwe now know was not only specially prepared for us, butalso got ready, as nearly as we can judge, for the appointedhour of our appearance at the feast. This we also know,that when the Divine Man came into the world, — unlikethe Port Royalists, he did not refuse the temperate use of HISTORY OF PLANTS, 81 any of these luxuries, not even of th
. The testimony of the rocks; . e do ourselves; and there is neither sense normerit, surely, in churlishly refusing of that ampleentertainment, sprinkled with delicate perfumes, garnishedwith roses, and crowned with the most delicious fruit, whichwe now know was not only specially prepared for us, butalso got ready, as nearly as we can judge, for the appointedhour of our appearance at the feast. This we also know,that when the Divine Man came into the world, — unlikethe Port Royalists, he did not refuse the temperate use of HISTORY OF PLANTS, 81 any of these luxuries, not even of that ointment of spiken-ard, very precious (a product of the labiate family), withwhich Mary anointed his feet. Though it may at first seem a little out of place, let us an-ticipate here, for the sake of the illustration which it affords,one of the sections of the other great division of our subject,— that which treats of the fossil animals. Let us run brieflyover the geologic history of insects, in order that we may Fig. CYCLOPHTHALMUS BUCKLANDI. (A Fossil Scorpion of the Coal Measures of Bohemia.) mark the peculiar light which it casts on the character ofthe ancient floras. No insects have yet been detected in theSilurian or Old Red Sandstone Systems. They first appearamid the hard, dry, flowerless vegetation of the Coal Meas-ures, and in genera suited to its character. Among thesethe scorpions take a prominent place, — carnivorous arach- 82 THE PAL-fflONTOLOGICAL nidae of ill repute, that live under stones and fallen trunks,and seize fast with their nippers upon the creatures on whichthey prey, crustaceans usually, such as the wood-louse, orinsects, such as the earth-beetles and their grubs. Withthe scorpions there occur cockroaches of types not at allunlike the existing ones, and that, judging from theirappearance, must have been foul feeders, to which scarceanything could have come amiss as food. Books, manu-scripts, leather, ink, oil, meat, even the bodies of the
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