Wanderings in South America, the north-west of the United States and the Antilles, 1812, 1816, 1820 and 1824, with instructions for the perfect preservation of birds, etc., for cabinets of natural history / by Charles Waterton, Esq.

  • Waterton, Charles, 1782-1865.
Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wanderings in South America, the north-west of the United States and the Antilles, 1812, 1816, 1820 and 1824, with instructions for the perfect preservation of birds, etc., for cabinets of natural history / by Charles Waterton, Esq. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    41/348 (page 25)
    which trickle down from them. The lightning, too, has blasted one side of it. Nature looks pale and wan in its leaves, and her resources are nearly dried up in its extre- mities ; its sap is tainted; a mortal sickness, slow as a consumption, and as sure in its consequences, has long since entered its frame, vitiating and destroying the wholesome juices there. Step a few paces aside, and cast thine eye on that remnant of a mora behind it. Best part of its branches, once so high and ornamental, now lie on the ground in sad confusion, one upon the other, all shattered and fungus-grown, and a prey to milhons of insects, which are busily employed in destroying them. One branch of it still looks healthy ! Will it recover ? No, it cannot; nature has already run her course, and that healthy- looking branch is only as a fallacious good symptom in him who is just about to die of a mortification, when he feels no more pain, and fancies his distemper has left him ; it is as the momentary gleam of a wintry sun’s ray close to the western horizon. See! while we are speak- ing a gust of wind has brought the tree to the ground, and made room for its successor. Gome further on, and examine that apparently luxuriant tauronira on thy right hand. It boasts a verdure not its own; they are false ornaments it wears : the bush-rope and bird-vines have clothed it from the root to its top- most branch. The succession of fruit which it hath E First