184 The Journal of a Naturalist, 



cihemical and physical uses of blossoms, those here admitted 

 are quite sufficient to rescue them from the charge of inutility : 

 but these the author overlooks, as well as the delight afforded 

 to man by their beauty and perfume ; because he sees " the 

 whole race of creation, with the exception of man, utterly re- 

 gardless of them: " and even this is an assumption. How do 

 we know that the bee and the butterfly, while extracting the 

 honey of flowers, may not also be engaged in admiring their 

 hues and odours ? — how do we know that the carpenter-bee 

 has no eye for the blushing red of the petals of the rose, be- 

 cause she chooses to line her nest with the green leaves ? — 

 or, if this preference be decisive against such admiration, what 

 says he to the fact, that a very near relative of this bee, hangs 

 her apartments with the bright scarlet petals of the poppy ? 

 " I would not," says he, " arrogate for man an exclusive 

 right, or make him generally the sole consideration of the 

 beneficence of Providence ; but there are influences which his 

 reason alone can perceive, incitements to good thoughts, and 

 •worthy actions." Yet, surely, man may be considered of 

 some little importance in the scale of creation ; and that from 

 which he derives pleasure, and " incitements to good thoughts," 

 need not necessarily be pronounced useless, because (even 

 admitting the fact) other creatures do not partake of that 

 pleasure ! Neither, on the other hand, let us be too sure that 

 these influences and incitements are exclusively peculiar to 

 man. Knowing the little that we do know of the bee, the ant, 

 and the beaver (to say nothing of an infinity of other creatures 

 remarkable for what we call instinct), how can we venture 

 upon such an assertion ? While we admire what we see and 

 know, it becomes us humbly to doubt of that which is hidden 

 from our knowledge. 



In his passion for flowers, I warmly sympathise with the 

 writer; and in his preference for those of spring. Perhaps, 

 says he, it is from the early flowers of spring that we derive 

 the greatest degree of pleasure ; " and our affections seem 

 immediately to expand at the sight of the first opening blos- 

 som under the sunny wall or sheltered bank, however humble 

 its race may be." Again, he says, " With summer flowers 

 we seem to live as with our neighbours, in harmony and good- 

 will, but spring flowers are cherished as private friendships." 

 Let not private friends despise the comparison ; for those who 

 feel it, will not be among those who are least susceptible of 

 friendship, or who attach a slight meaning to the term. 



" It is a perplexing matter," says our author, in another 

 passage, " to reconcile our feelings to the rigour, and our 

 reason to the necessity, of some plants being made the instru- 



