Note 85 — VI. Report upon the New or Rare Plants which flowered in the Garden of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick, between March, 1825, and March, 1826. Part 1. Tender Plants. By John Lindley, Esq. ◊ (continued 6)

See Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 80. Wars and Sports, p. 335. With regard to the unicorn, Camper has remarked, that “if this animal was ruminant and cloven-footed, it is certain that its frontal bone must have been divided longitudinally into two, and that it could not possibly have had a horn placed upon the suture.” This remark by Camper, when we consider how nature adapts every thing to its purposes, cannot stand as a real objection to the existence of the oryx. The most eminent naturalists have been wrong in some of their conjectures. John Hunter pronounced the mastodon to be a carnivorous beast. Buffon, after frequently considering the bones of the mammoth, conceived them to belong to a beast six times larger than the biggest elephant; and Muller was of opinion that it must have been 105 feet in height, and 133 in length! So little capable is any human being to judge what nature does, or can do!