red stalks, the large size of the leaves, and the general appearance of the plant, would render it a great ornament to our gardens. Although the countries in which it grows most abundantly and luxuriantly, are possessed of a much higher tem perature than ours, it yet occurs naturally in other parts of the United States, where the mean temperature is as low as with

us.

In Miller's Dictionary, the following directions are given for its cultivation :-"Sow the seeds in the spring, upon a bed of light earth; and, when the plants come up, transplant them into the borders of the flower-garden, allowing them space to grow; for they will overbear other plants, if they are too near them, especially if the soil be good. Clear them from weeds; and, in the autumn, they will produce flowers and fruit. The first frosts will destroy the stems, but the roots will abide, and shoot in the spring."

ON THE TAMARACK, OR AMERICAN LARCH.

THIS beautiful tree-Larix Pendula-is not perhaps so generally known in this island as its importance entitles it to be. It differs from the European species in the smaller size of its leaves and cones, the latter of which are about half the size of those of the Common Larch. Its larger branches are nearly horizontal, and somewhat pendulous. It sheds its leaves at the fall, and renews them in spring; and indeed in all its characters so nearly resembles the larch of Europe, that it is by some considered to be merely a variety. It grows in the higher latitudes of North America. It is abundant in Vermont, New Hampshire, and the districts of the Maine; but it is beyond the St Lawrence, and in an especial manner near the Lakes St John and Mistassin, that it begins to form continuous masses of forest, miles in extent. It is found in Nova Scotia, and plentifully in Newfoundland; and it extends far to the north towards Labrador. The limits of its appearance to the south, are the highest and most exposed mountains of Virginia; but even in Pennsylvania and New Jersey it is rare; and in the neighbourhood of New

York, it is seen only in the swamps of white cedar, with which it is scantily intermixed *.

Like other trees of the genus, it grows to a great size. It is remarkable for the elevation to which it attains, even in those boundless regions of magnificent forest where it is indigenous. Its trunk is smooth, straight, and slender, being two or three feet in diameter, but rising to the height of from eighty to a hundred feet in the places suited to its growth. Its wood, like that of the European species, is tough and durable. Its specific gravity is so great, that its weight is frequently regarded as an objection. It is used in ship-building for the knees of vessels, and for every purpose of carpentry to which the wood of pines is applied. By the French Canadians it is termed Epinette Rouge, and its wood is the most esteemed by them of all the resinous kinds. It is equally valued when it is obtained in the Eastern states of America, but there it is greatly less used, from its rarer occurrence amidst the more extended growth of the black and hemlock spruce, the red cedar, and other resinous trees of the American forest.

There is another species or variety of larch known in the American woods, called Microcarpa, which also has declining branches, but is distinguished from that which we have been describing by its smaller fruit. In the magnificent work on Pines of Sir A. B. Lambert, it is described as a separate species, while by others it is regarded, and probably more correctly, as a variety. Its wood, like that of the Tamarack, is tough, durable, and ponderous; it is used for the same purposes, and is held in the like estimation.

The Tamarack, growing in the high latitude and frozen regions of Hudson's Bay and Labrador, is calculated to withstand a far more intense cold than is ever known in these islands. It might even be inferred from this circumstance that it is a hardier tree than the larch of Europe, which, although it extends to the high lands of Russia and Siberia, is rather a native of the mountain regions of southern Europe-the Alps of Switzerland and the Tyrol. Little opportunity, however, has yet existed in this island of comparing the American with the European larch.

Michaux on the Forest Trees of North America.

There are some examples of the former at Dunkeld, on the property of the Duke of Athol, where, however, the trees are said not to have reached the size of the larches of Europe; and we have recently heard of another experiment in Perthshire, where a plantation has been formed, consisting of the tamarack and common larch planted together. It is still too soon to draw inferences as to the relative merits of either from this latter experiment, but as yet the superiority of growth has been in favour of the American species.

Whatever, however, be their relative value for forest culture, it is certain that both species are wonderfully hardy, and calculated to resist the utmost rigour of temperature at which forest trees can be raised in Britain. They possess a wide range of climate in the Old World and the New,-growing in the most elevated regions of either, and nearly at the limits of vegetable life.

A general opinion prevails, that the hardiest tree for our mountains is the Scotch pine. We have heard this opinion controverted; and so far as our observation extends, the larch will grow in every situation where the Scotch pine can grow, and at a greater elevation. We conceive that it merits an important place in the forest culture of the mountains of this country, whether we regard its hardy qualities, the quickness of its growth, or the value of its timber. No tree, we conceive, will yield so quick a return to the planter, and none is more easy to be cultivated. It is frequently, indeed, planted in situations which are unsuitable to it, and hence the want of success which often attends its culture in certain situations, as in clays, and in marly and marshy soils. The larch of Europe is indigenous in dry, rocky, and elevated grounds. The larch of America is known to grow in flat and even swampy regions, and may perhaps be found to be capable of cultivation in places to which the European larch would be unsuited.

ESSAYS ON THE ORIGIN AND NATURAL HISTORY OF DOMESTI C

ANIMALS.

By JAMES WILSON, Esq. F.R. S. E., M. W. S.

&c.

ESSAY V.

ON THE ORIGIN AND NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOMESTIC HOG.

THE highly important, though not very extensive, order of Pachydermatous or thick-skinned quadrupeds contains, in accordance with the views of modern naturalists, the following genera, viz. the Tapir, the Rhinoceros, the Hyrax, or Cape Marmot, the Peccari, the Babyroussa, the Wild Boar, the African Boar, the Hippopotamus, and the Horse. The striking difference in character and appearance presented by these animals, when compared with each other, has induced their formation into families or lesser groups, which some writers, with good reason, regard as constituting so many distinct and well defined orders. The more our knowledge of the magnificent circle of Nature's works increases, the greater the necessity becomes of sacrificing many pre-established views, and adapting our superstructural arrangements to the more solid and extended basis deduced from the knowledge of anatomy, and the careful observance of natural instincts and modes of life.

With a repulsive aspect, an ungraceful form, the most sensual habits, and a disposition frequently approaching to the ferocity of the carnivorous tribes, the domestic hog is yet one of the most useful of quadrupeds. If the value of a benefit depends in a great measure on its universality, this animal may indeed claim a higher rank than many of a loftier nature; for we may say of it, as Horace has said of "pallida mors," that it ministers alike "in huts where poor men lie," and in the palaces of kings.

With the exception of New Holland, and the countries of the extreme north, we find animals of the hog kind, using the words, for the present, in their more extended signification, over a vast extent of the earth's surface *. Setting aside the subgenus

• The wild boar, according to Pennant, is common in all the reedy marshes of Tartary and Siberia, and in the mountainous forests about Lake

pro

Phacocharus, which is distinguished by a difference in the number of the incisive teeth, the other animals of the hog kind bably amount to not more than five distinctly ascertained species. Of these, two species called Pecaries, are peculiar to South America, north of the tropic; of the three others characteristic of the ancient continent, one (Sus babyroussa) is confined to the Indian Archipelago, another (Sus larvatus) occurs in Africa, and a third (Sus aper, or the Wild Boar,) the most important and most widely distributed of the whole, is found in numerous portions of Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Islands of the Indian

seas.

The differences observable among our domestic breeds, though considerable, are by no means sufficient to establish, as some have supposed, the probability of their descent from a double or triple source. If we fix our attention upon the two extremes, and comparing a small Chinese pig of the improved breed, with a huge and shapeless mass, such as is still found in the wellprovisioned sties of England, we may no doubt find some difficulty in assigning a reason for supposing both to have been derived from the same origin. But this is a defective mode of considering either the varieties of a species, or the species of a genus; for where the intermediate links are wanting, we are unqualified to judge of the real relations of the two extremes; and it is the ascertainment of these links, whether presented by the affinities of varieties, of species, or of genera, that constitutes the true and essential knowledge of nature.

Now, we know that a connecting link may be traced between all these varieties, however distant they may seem;-we know that their instinctive habits, under similar circumstances, are always the same, that their periods of gestation correspond,that all the features of their anatomical structure are identical, and that they intermingle with each other, and produce a fertile young. These circumstances go far to prove their descent from a common stock; and when we add, that all the domestic varieties with which the experiment has been hitherto tried, produce freely with the wild boar, we cease to doubt that that species is the stock in question. That the wild boar is a very Baikal, as far as Lat. 50°; but it is said not to occur in the north-eastern extremity of Siberia.-See Arctic Zoology. vol. ii. p. 40,