Page:Madras journal of literature and science vol 2 new series 1857.djvu/190

180 On the BelationsMp existing [no. 4, new series, the various secretions, as they disclose no appreciable disparity in structure to account for the dissimilarity of their products, must therefore possess some special endowment or quality, whereby they are enabled to make a selection of material. The mode in which the gland as a whole is constructed can have no direct influence in this respect, for secretions are vicarious and the same gland assumes different forms in different grades of the animal kingdom. We have not space to compare the secretions of the two kingdoms, and would merely insist on the similarity of secreting structures in both, and the mysterious faculty that these possess of selecting certain substances, and only these during health, from the circulating fluid.

Thus through all the functions of organic life, there exists between the animal and plant a wonderful consanguinity. In both we find a variety of processes instituted with a view to the same results, and performed by means of structures identical in the plan of their conformation. There are still however other relations, equally strange, existing between the two kingdoms; and these are perhaps more directly practical in their bearings than those already noticed. The great Creator of the universe, has established a fixed Geographical distribution of the varieties of the animal and plant, that cannot be departed from without incurring the risk of disease or even death. The Esquimaux enjoys perfect health, living in his snow-hut and feeding upon raw flesh, the supply of whi<;h is far from regular or abundant; a mode of life that would, to say the least of it, be dangerous to any native of a temperate climate, and death to any member of an intertropical race. On the same inhospitable shores of the frigid zone, we find a scanty flora of Saxifragacese, Salices and Cochleariae, not one of which has ever been removed to a milder climate with impunity. Still more impossible would it be to transplant and to adorn with our Magnolias, Camellieae or Palmae, the ice-bound coasts of Labrador or Greenland; or to exchange for the Lion and Tiger of the one region, the fiercer and more powerful White Bear of the other.

Early in the summer of 1852, a dog and bitch only a few months old were picked up by me on the shores of Melville Bay in about 75° N. Latitude, Both were in good health so long as we remain-