409 



him that he remembers having taken notice of the plant fifty years 

 since ; another man vouches for forty years. The plant occupies a 

 space of about 20 feet by 5 or 6, and is not found in any other part of 

 St. Agnes, nor, as far as Mr. Mayne knows, in any of the other 

 islands. Twenty years since St. Agnes, as he has ascertained, could 

 not boast of even one garden, and therefore floral culture could hardly 

 have caused its introduction more than fifty years since, when pota- 

 toes and rye and an occasional cabbage were the 07ily things grown 

 in the island by people who live wholly by the sea. Strange birds 

 often visit the Isles during the south-easterly winds, and may, as Mr. 

 Mayne justly suspects, have brought seeds from the continent. He 

 adds, that ' a brother clergyman, living at Marazion, near Penzance, 

 has some plants of it growing in his garden. He has never seen the 

 plant elsewhere, and is quite at a loss to account for their presence.' 

 I have no authority for supposing that it is found upon the Atlantic 

 coasts of France, but it inhabits damp and stony or rocky places in 

 the south of that country. The peculiarly mild winter climate of 

 Scilly is not unfavourable to it, and it may therefore be an old if not 

 the oldest inhabitant." 



Acrostic written at the Grave of the late Thomas Edmonston, Na- 

 turalist to H.M.S. ' Herald,^ hy one of his Fellow-voyagers. 



'T was from this beautiful and rock-bound bay 



H eaven deemed it right to call his soul away. 



O ne moment's warning was to him denied : 

 'M idst life, and youth, and health, and hope he died. 



A las ! that boastful Science could not save 



S o apt a scholar from this early grave. 



E ven those who knew not of his private worth 

 D eplore his talents buried in the earth. 

 'M ong flowers that gem the softly verdant ground, 

 O 'erspread with trees, his grave is to be found. 

 N o crowd his resting-place shall ever view ; 

 S till sad aflliction will induce a iew 

 T o gaze where plants o'er which he lavished years/ 

 O 'er him now silent, shed their dewy tears, 

 N or seek to hide a grief denied to nobler biers. 



P. A. W. 



Sua Bay, Ecuador, Oct. 18, 1847. 



VOL. IV. 3 G 



