A thin slice from the surface is a beautiful and curious object in the microscope, exhibiting the different channels, and variously formed tubes, through which the sap flows, and the air circulates for the supply of all the diversified requirements of the plant; and it is good and delightful to contemplate the wonderful mechanism that has been devised by the Almighty Architect, for the sustenance and particular necessities of the simple maple, this “ditch trumpery,” as Gilpin calls it; which naturally leads one to consider that, if he have so regarded such humble objects, how much more has he accounted worthy of his beneficence the more highly destined orders of his creation! As Evelyn says, on another occasion, “I beg no pardon for this application, but deplore my no better use of it.” Modern practice records no medicinal virtues to be derived from the maple; but Pliny, in the quaint language of old Philemon Holland, tells us that a cataplasm made from the roots of this tree is “singular to be applied for the griefs of the liver, and worketh mightily.” In summer the leaves of the hedge-row maple often assume a whitish, mouldy look, which appears to be a mere exudation, as it neither presents any after-character, nor have I observed that any thing results from it. The young leaves, soon after their appearance in the spring, are beset with numerous fine spines of a bright red color, most probably occasioned by the puncture of some insect, though I have never been able to discover any of the larvæ inclosed in them. Some insects wound the leaves and sprays of plants for nutriment, though generally the object seems to be the formation of a nidus for their young, by the fluid that issues from the wound: but insects do something more than merely puncturing the parts to force a liquor to exude; a simple wound will not accomplish the desired object, as the sap not only hardens on the surface, but acquires a particular form and consistence, and even at times enlarges to a separate vegetable matter. The insect that wounds the leaf of the oak, and occasions the formation of the gall-nut, and those which are likewise the cause of the apple rising on the sprays of the same tree, and those flower-like leaves on the buds have performed very different operations, either by the instrument that inflicted the wound, or by the injection of some fluid to influence the action of the parts. That extraordinary hairy excrescence on the wild rose (cynips rosæ), likewise the result of an insect’s wounds, resembles no other nidus required for such creatures that we know of; and these red spines on the leaf of the maple are different again from others. It is useless to inquire into causes of which we probably can obtain no certain result, but, judging by the effects produced by different agents, we must conclude, that, as particular birds require and fabricate from age to age very different receptacles for their young,