THE VICTORIA REGINA. 43 



works of the Creator, we discover the most perfect 

 order, and the most wonderful combination of means 

 to produce a desired end. If, when darkness has 

 passed, and the bat has retired to her shelter for 

 the day, we observe the flights and motions of 

 the creatures which then come forth from the coverts 

 where they have slept securely through the night, 

 the beauty of the vegetable world, and the place to 

 which every shrub and flower is assigned; what 

 symmetry and beauty is discoverable, what a won- 

 derful adaptation of plants, and animals, and birds., 

 to the sites which they are designed to occupy ! 



Take, for instance, the jg^cently discovered Vic- 

 toria Regina, that noble flower which M. Schomberg 

 saw growing on the river Berbice, and which ap- 

 pears in the distance like a magnificent salver, 

 ornamented with a light green rim, and reflecting 

 a vivid crimson glow from the under surface as 

 it floats on the bosom of the river. From out the 

 centre of this arises a splendid flower with a hun- 

 dred petals, sweetly scented, and, at one period of 

 its growth, of the purest white. As the narrator 

 rowed from one plant to the other, he was con- 

 tinually delighted with observing some hew beauty ; 

 several which had just expanded were quite white, 

 others rose-coloured, others pink. The rim espe- 

 cially attracted his notice ; it was at least five inches 

 high, and was obviously designed to prevent the 

 water from overflowing the surface of the leaf, when 

 agitated by a brisk wind. Nor was it without a 

 considerable degree of beauty, the inside being of a 

 light green, the outer of a brilliant crimson. Uniting 

 also an equal degree of elegance and utility, up rose 



