THE NATURALIST ABROAD. 68 



It is now quite light, and all along the borders of the wood before us innu- 

 merable Roses bend their snowy dew-covered petals, while the devious course 

 of the river is marked far along the vale, by a cloud of rolling steam that 

 hides the current foaming here and there among the stones in the shallows. 

 We have gained the summit of the hill through a host of dewy Mosses and 

 sleeping Cisti, just as the golden disk of the expected sun peers proudly over 

 the long dark rampart of eastern heights. The chirping birds hail his rising, 

 and the Cuckoo vainly attempts to continue the melodious notes that in the 

 vernal hours brought news from Paradise ! But it is useless, one cue and a 

 hoarse cough, announces too plainly that advancing summer directs an in- 

 forcement of the "silent system" from the feathered throng. And we are 

 silent, as we gaze with gratitude on the wide landscape now revealed beneath 

 the resplendent gleam of the monarch of day. Beauty is retiring before util- 

 ity, for the wants of man must be supplied as well as his eyes charmed. The 

 orchards are all faded into dullness, but the green fruit hidden beneath the 

 leaves is swelling into maturity ; the corn fields are rising into flowering vigour, 

 but the mower whets his scythe, and the flowers and grasses in the wide golden- 

 tinged meadows, lie withering in the morning beams- The fragrance now 

 borne upon the breeze is of the most exquisite kind ; the balsamic odours 

 wafted from the flowering Bean-field, mix with the scent of the aromatic hay, 

 and the profusion of fragrance rising from the empurpled meads of Honey- 

 suckle Clovers, forms a luxurious olfactory treat, which they only can fully 

 understand who have waded knee-deep in the dewy grass, leaped from stone to 

 stone over the rapid brook, or, in search of Nature's beauties, dashed in the 

 gloom of twilight through boggy meadows, or deep entangled underwood. 

 There is a Humble Bee's (Bombus terrestris) nest in the bank close by, and 

 one by one the huge hairy insects emerge from the entrance, shake their wings, 

 and with a solemn boom fly off to their desultory labours. How often t have 

 I chased them in early life, confined them under broken panes of glass with, 

 Dandelions, or exclaimed with Shakspeare, — ''Monsieur Cowweb, good 

 Monsieur, get your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-nipt Humble-Bee, 



on the top of a Thistle; and, good Monsieur, bring me the honey-bag \" a 



commission my thoughtless companions were but too eager to execute. Loud- 

 est of the insect buzzers, his boom heard far in the air, and compared by St. 

 Pierre to a fire-coal among the bushes, is still always listened to with pleasure, 

 as a pledge of confirmed summer, bright sunny days, and short nights. 



Here is an old grotesque Oak, on whose withered Stags-horn arms five hun- 

 dred winters have spent their rage in vain ; it stands as it would ever stand, 

 still partially decked in verdure, still rooted with power to resist an ordinary 

 hurricane, but nevertheless it displays the ensigns of ruin. The Polypody 



