Colenso. — Bush Jottings. 317 



weird-like aspect to the solitary scene. At such times, 

 pictures from Goethe's " Faust " — particularly of Faustus and 

 Mephistopheles ascending through the dry mountain-woods to 

 the witches meeting on the Brocken — have been forcibly called 

 to my mind, and I have thought how such pictures might be 

 further improved by the addition of some of those large, 

 flapping, strange-looking lichens to the naked and dead 

 branches of those gnarled mountain-trees, even more so than 

 by the artist's introduction of flitting bats into such a scene, 

 as bats do not fly by night. 



Furthermore, in those dry and stony hill-sides, when the 

 soughing winds sweep fitfully over the arid barren plains 

 around and above, and blow among the stiff and hardened 

 thin-edged lichens hanging from their denuded branches, not 

 unfrequently sharpish, shrilly, stridulous, and low wailing 

 sounds are heard, which are not, however, unpleasant, and 

 serve to increase one's strange thoughts and mournful feelings, 

 especially if alone— much as Wordsworth has it, — 



In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 

 Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 



III. Striking, though Common. 



A few plants that are very frequent on the sides of the rail- 

 way-line between Dannevirke and Woodville, and almost sure 

 to arrest the eyes of some of the passengers, from the oddness 

 and singularity of their appearance, may here be briefly men- 

 tioned, and that because very often certain questions are sure 

 to be asked concerning them, especially at this, the winter- 

 czwj-spring season of the year. 



And first I would take two that are often seen growing 

 together close to the railway-lines, upright, single-stemmed, 

 and pretty nearly of the same height (3ft.— 6ft. or so), one a 

 small young tree-fern (probably a Dicksonia or a Cyathea), 

 and the other a young " cabbage-tree " of the settlers (Corchj- 

 line australis). These, with all the herbage and small ever- 

 green shrubs that grow thickly around them, have been lately 

 set on fire (I suppose, to clear the sides of the railway-line) ; 

 and while the herbage and shrubs have been thus destroyed — 

 burnt up — these two plants are still living, and fast shooting 

 their large bright-green leaves and fronds from their tips and 

 so forming living crowns, while their stems present a hideous 

 black appearance, as if not only scorched but thoroughly burnt 

 and killed, the whole of their bark and outer woody layers 

 having been destroyed; increased, if possible, by the great 

 contrast in colours, shown in their long dry and pale faded 

 leaves hanging irregularly down from their tops ; these leaves 

 having been scorched and killed by the fire, but being thick 

 and green were not completely burnt up. And the question 



