PARASITIC AND WATER PLANTS. 93 



otherwise fly far in quest of water. Scarcely does 

 the wide extent of the vegetable kingdom offer a 

 more beautiful instance of evident design, than this 

 graceful plant. A yellow cup is seen suspended 

 from the lip of each blossom, into which two horns 

 continually distil a sweet pure liquid. The cup 

 communicates by means of a groove, formed from 

 the inflated margin of the lip, with a capacious 

 helmet-shaped vessel, into which the liquid when 

 too abundant, runs from the cup. This plant grows 

 also in the woods of Demerara. Doubtless 

 there are many others of a similar description, 

 which compensate, in a great degree, the want of 

 water. For a considerable portion of British 

 Guiana was, indeed, a thirsty land, till the import- 

 ant discovery made by Colonel M'Turk, of a large 

 inland lake, the waters of which he conducted by 

 means of a canal to George Town ; and subsequently 

 of the wells, which have sprung up in consequence 

 of boring. This remark applies, especially, to that 

 extent of country which borders the sea, and goes 

 many miles inland, formed of an accumulation of 

 decayed vegetables, mixed with earth, to the depth 

 of one hundred and fifty feet, and yielding a rich 

 loam : beneath which, and at a considerable depth, 

 large forest-trees have been discovered, in a state 

 of perfect preservation, on the east banks of the 

 river Demerara, near its entrance into the Atlantic, 

 and another similar stratum, partly decayed, at about 

 seven feet below the surface of the earth. 



How valuable must be the coryanthes, holding 

 forth its brimming goblet to small birds and insects, 

 when, resting in their noon-day flights, they look 



