20 lees's LEC'ILRE ON THE AFFINITIES OF 



ensigns which were strangers to it while lingering on the barren shore. Some 

 plants, as the tooth-wort, the primrose-root, or the wood-vetch, are confined to the 

 deepest recesses of the shade ; while the butter-cup riots gorgeously in the 

 laughing meadow^ * * Some, like the sensitive plant, are ready even to shrink 

 into themselves ; or like the purple sandwort, close their flowers instantly, if 

 plucked ; while the hardy and officious thistle, thrusting himself every where in 

 spite of rebuffs, displays his innumerable prickles, and seems to say in scorn — - 

 * Nemo me impune lacessit.* But delightful is the sandstone rock, in whose recesses 

 the cotyledon or sedum have fixed their hermit cells ; gracefully beneath them, the 

 blue campanula waves her fairy bells ; the yellow cistus sparkles upon the bright 

 slope lower down, and the slender climbing fumitory clings among the rubbish at 

 the very edge of the precipice ; while, where that bush of roses shrouds the chrystal 

 spring from view that faintly drops its tears down the steep, the forget-me-not, 

 like a presiding Naiad, decorates the shaded solitude with its blue corymbs, and 

 year after year delights the eyes of those who first pledged their fuith in the 

 summer twilight at that hallowed spot. Some plants, as the vervain, attend upon 

 the footsteps of man, and only flourish about his habitation ; others, as the elder 

 and ' way-faring tree,' delight in the vicinity of roads ; while the flaming poppy 

 still denotes its association with eastern manners, and the worship of the goddess 

 whose brow was adorned with a wreath of poppies and wheat. But I cannot, at 

 present, enlarge here ; suffice it to say, that the mountain, the valley, the wood, 

 the plain, the cave, and the waters, have all their flowery inhabitants, — nor can 

 man, universal claimant as he is, find a spot where the flower has not preceded him 

 in his pilgrimage." (P. 45.) 



" The affinities presented by plants with birds are not the least pleasing, but I 

 am compelled reluctantly to review them quickly. In their associations with 

 flowers, birds present materials for a natural calendar. The snowdrop displays its 

 pendant flakes of vegetable snow just as the birds are pruning up their feathers 

 and thinking: of pairing, and when the raven has actually commenced incubation. 

 The daffodil ' comes before the swallow dares,' — the cowslip when he is come. The 

 marsh marigold and cuckoo-flower diversify the moist meadows with the richest 

 hues of gold and silver, marking the arrival of the cuckoo ; and numerous other 

 coincidences between the appearance of birds, flowers, and insects, might be easily 

 shown and dilated upon. When the solstitial flowers appear, the woods are silent ; 

 but when the robin renews his melody, we at once anticipate the autumnal gust 

 and the falling leaves. In Persian poetry the nightingale and the rose are per- 

 petually associated ; hence it is said — ' you may place a hundred handsful of fragrant 

 herbs and flowers before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his constant heart for 

 more than the sweet perfume (or breath) of his beloved rose.' This eastern 

 hyperbole arises from the singing of the nightingale and the flowering of the rose 

 being simultaneous in Persia, and hence the rose and the nightingale are constantly 

 united in the minds of the Persians." (P. 94.) 



One more extract and we have done. 



** Plants and insects are inseparable in their companionship. The first golden 

 catkin of the vernal day calls them on rapid wing to repair humming to its em- 

 braces, and the last tuft of ivy that spreads its stamens in the declining sun of the 

 dying year, witnesses their expiring ardour. Even in winter, amidst ice and snow, 

 minute gnats hover in sportive flight about the evergreens, and their voice in 

 summer sounds ceaseless from the first boom of the waking humble-bee to the 

 droning evening horn of the beetle, winging his rounds in the solemn twilight : — 



Nor undelig-htful is the ceaseless hum 



To him who wanders through the woods at noon.' 



" But when refulgent summer displays his brightest robes — when the garden 

 blooms with its richest lustre — then every flower teems with insect hosts, and the 

 utmost exertion of insect splendour seems put forth as if in competition with the 

 resplendent tints of the odour-breathing flowers. The ceionia aurata, or rose- 

 beetle, like a living emerald, carouses amid the beauties of the rose — the ruby- 

 spotted, or pure-white butterflies, delicately and coyly sport from flower to flower, 

 as if uncertain on which to fix — while the humming-bird sphinx, darting like an 

 arrow, quivers over the white jessamine, and extracts its luxurious sweets, as if 

 by enchantment. Meantime, the bees, like men of business, relax not their 

 duties for a moment — some are gathering honey, some are collecting the farina on 



