HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



^93 



NEW WORLD NATURE-LOVERS. 



By the Rev. HILDERIC FRIEND, F.L.S., Author of " Flowers and Flower-Lore," &c. 



lO age or clime but 

 has owned its 

 spirits whose chief 

 delight has been to 

 coquet with fitful 

 Nature, as the flirt 

 dances attendance 

 on the coy and 

 blushing maid. 

 With some, this 

 love - making has 

 been a mere pass- 

 ing whim, and 

 when some more 

 attractive object 

 has flashed upon 

 their vision, they 

 have left their first 

 or last plaything, 

 as a child does its 

 toys which pleased 

 it yesterday, for a newer — albeit not always a 

 worthier thing. Not so, however, with all. As the 

 worthy knights of yore, who had been fascinated by 

 the beautiful form of some Beatrice or Isabelle, were 

 prepared to plunge into the arena where infuriated 

 beasts were goaded to madness, that they might 

 recover her fallen glove and thus prove themselves 

 worthy of her hand, so have some of Nature's 

 truest knights wooed her amid dangers, endured her 

 frown, remained faithful when her purposes were 

 least intelligible, and pressed her for the affirmative 

 response, when it seemed as though her favours were 

 to be for ever withheld. 



While the almond-eyed daughters of China pluck 

 the jasmine and fairy-flower merely to adorn the 

 hair or add a grateful perfume to their person and 

 apartments, the poet Leen is away among the rice- 

 fields and bamboo groves listening to the song of the 

 cicada and the call of the frog, weaving their 

 discordant yet ever tunefully accordant syllables into 

 No. 321. — September 1891. 



intelligible sounds, and making the bird and reptile 

 alike to speak in human strains. He praises the gold 

 of narcissus, and the purple of cockscomb or peony ; 

 descants on the softness of the evening breeze as it 

 moans in the cypress and pine ; or goes into raptures 

 as he recounts the wonders to be seen from the river- 

 boat as it follows the tortuous course through defile 

 and valley, through the haunts of the wild fowl, and 

 the thick-peopled abodes of his brethren. China has 

 her nature-lovers. Nor is this less true of the fair 

 islands of the South, where man and maid alike are 

 ready to sing the praises of orchid-epiphytes and 

 weeping iron-wood, stringing together the while 

 garlands of choice blossoms, producing sweet per- 

 fumes from the Makita, Bua, or Leba, and weaving 

 their scanty garments from the paper mulberry or 

 bright feathers of the Kula bird. 



Who shall attempt to describe with what delight 

 the Persian drink in the fragrance of the rose to the 

 song of his native nightingale, and becomes an 

 impromptu native poet under their combined 

 influences ? Or who will adequately picture the 

 delight of the untutored, yet full-souled representative, 

 of Asia's many tribes, when, as he sits by the Meinam 

 and watches the glittering fireflies, or basks in the 

 delights of Himalayan forest, and Burman plain, he 

 surrenders himself to luxurious idleness, and sways 

 his whole being to music of his own begetting ? 



These may not be recognized as members of the 

 fraternity by your jargon-loving scientist : the natu- 

 ralist who believes in having every beetle and bug 

 named, and cabinetted in apple-pie order, knows them 

 not ; yet they are true nature-lovers, and are more in 

 touch with the masses of their kith and kin, than all 

 your world-enlightening doctors of science and pro- 

 fessors of biology. These latter, worthy souls, who 

 have created a scientific slang for their sole behoof — 

 failing to understand which you must for ever remain 

 outside the pale of the erudite and orthodox school — 

 cannot believe it possible for nature's secret to be 

 unlocked, save by their patent key, and utterly refuse 



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