330 BOTANY, ETC., OF THE 
its force and keenness. In the afternoon the gale moderated, but the 
sky continued all day thickly overcast, with much wind again at night. 
Walked out to the Coves, a long straggling village under the high 
banks of the river, a mile or two above Quebec, where the lumber 
trade of the city is carried on. A great part of the population seemed - 
to be Trish ; and, the situation of the place being well sheltered, the 
vegetation was luxuriant, and the foliage of the trees less changed to 
its autumnal hues than on the higher more exposed grounds. The 
excellent and laborious Bishop of Montreal, Dr. Mountain, to whom 
I had an introduction from a mutual friend in England, assured me 
that the trees were unusually green for the season, in ordinary years 
the leaves changing to their autumnal covering by the middle or end 
of September. On crossing the plains of Abraham, I stopped for a 
moment at the spot where General Wolfe fell, marked by en insignificant 
column, now much dilapidated, ‘with the simple inscription, “ Here 
Wolfe died victorious.” On these plains I picked a small specimen, 
in flower, of Euphrasia officinalis, a plant scarcely found, I believe, in 
the United States, unless on the highest mountains in New England, 
although abundant even at the sea-level over a great part of Europe. 
The steep banks of the St. Lawrence, which consist of a sterile slaty 
rock, are here covered with Rhus Taxicodendron, called by the French 
Canadians Herbe aux Puces, for what reason I know not. The plant 
shows no disposition to climb, or any tendency to attach itself here, as 
elsewhere, in the manner of ivy to the trees and shrubs in the thickets 
that clothe the summits of these rocky slopes, and indeed principally 
. eonfines itself to their denuded and precipitous bases, which it covers 
` with its short decumbent or ascending stems, a foot or two in length, 
that again take root here and there, but can scarcely be called trailing. 
The fruit, which was fully ripe, is small, dry, furrowed, and of a 
brownish-white colour, looking much like blighted white currants. 
The poisonous property of the plant by contact is known and dreaded 
here, but I found it as usual inert on my own person. Silene inflata 
xt js common along the river, the leaves fleshy, and the panicle fewer- 
flowered and more spreading than with us, the whole plant approaching 
somewhat S. maritima in habit. The rocky thickets above the St. Law- 
rence are mainly composed of different species of Crategus, which 
. abound more about Quebec than I observed them to do elsewhere in 
.. Canada, and overspread whole acres, presenting very puzzling varia- 
