HO FAMILIAR WILD FLO WEES. 



too many of their modern successors, find it exceedingly 

 easy just to pass a story on, so that a statement of 

 any kind, if not too bare-faced, may live an unlimited 

 time without being; brought to the test. We have 

 ourselves brought to the rough test of trial and ex- 

 perience very many of the statements found in various books 

 of more or less antiquity, and have frequently found them 

 delusive ; until at last we have arrived at a state of almost 

 utter scepticism on all such points. 



The following graphic description of the littoral waste 

 by Merritt is well worth quotation : 



' ' The marsh is bleak and lonely. Scarce a flower 

 Gleams in the waving grass. The rosy thrift 

 Has paler grown since summer bkssed the scene ; 

 And the sea-lavender, whose lilac blooms 

 Drew from the saline soil a richer hue 

 Than when they grew on yonder towering cliff, 

 Quivers in flowering greenness to the wind. 

 No sound is heard, save when the sea-bird screams 

 Its lonely prestige of the coming storm ; 

 And the sole blossom which can glad the eye 

 Is yon pale starwort nodding to the wind." 



