OCTOBER. 491 



the squirrel, it drops upon the ground and is covered 

 up by dead leaves. The young plant slumbers within 

 its cell, but rains pour upon the leaves about it, and 

 the moistened darkened shell at length becomes soft, 

 and in due time relaxing, splits in two ; the nut 

 gradually separates into two lobes, a dicotyledonous 

 embryo appears to view, whose radicle and plumule 

 quickly enter upon their allotted functions. 



Under hedges and in secluded lanes, even at this 

 late period, while lines of radiance quiver across the 

 landscape, how beautiful is the tranquil scene. The 

 leaves vivid with the sun's latest tinges, and, as if 

 coloured with expiring passion, fall exhausted to the 

 ground, silently yet imperceptibly strewing the paths 

 with a crisp covering, exhaling not scents of death 

 but those of revivification, for nature is her own em- 

 balmer. The ground becomes coloured for artistic 

 painting with the brown leaves, and the hedges them- 

 selves are dyed in purple and crimson where the dog- 

 wood or the viburnum yet hold their foliage, or the 

 dewberry shows its sanguine-stained leaflets, or coyly 

 hangs its blue opaque fruit on the banks of the weedy 

 ditch. There in the water the Loosestrife (JLytlira 

 salicarid) seems to have been dyed in blood, and 

 masses of Bur-reeds yet green, show their powdery 

 stamens or globose heads of prickly fruit. 



Penetrating farther among yielding mosses and 

 black morassy soil, where silence is brooding among 

 bogs, withering Carices, and Cotton-grasses, with 

 stagnant pools gleaming in the duskiness, a sight of 

 verdant loveliness refreshes the eye in the bending 

 stems and whorled branches of the "Wood Horsetail 

 (JEquisetum sylvaticum), apparent for a long extent on 



