452 Foreign JSTotices. 



and picked up h few shells, amonjr which were fine «:peeimens of a spe- 

 cies of lanlhlna eontaiiiing the aiiiiiral. Many Porli/guese men-of-war, 

 as the Physalis pelagia is coiiimoiily called, had heeii hitely thrown on 

 shore. In a rocky phice near the sea we found Jacquiuia annillaris, 

 and a little farther on, in flat sandy spots, Sophora lilloralis in great 

 abundance, 



" Two days before quitting the ishind we walked nearly across it, and 

 visited one out of the three suj^ar plantations which are on it. This ex- 

 cursion made considerable additions to our collections. On a dry hill, 

 covered with low shruits, we found jrreat plenty of Krameriaixina, and 

 a species of Clusia, with large white flowers, and attaining the stature 

 of a small tree, 



" The island is about three lea<;ues in length, and half as much across, 

 and is said to contain upwards of two thousand inhai)itaiirs, who derive 

 their principal subsistence from fishinir, and, though ajiiiarently very 

 poor, showed us much hospitiility. Thouirh there arc l)oth a lawyer 

 and a priest among them, they have no medical men; and as soon as it 

 became known that I was such, I was consulted by great nund)ers. 

 Two of my patients were in the hist sta<re of consumption, but by far 

 the greater pro])ortion of cases were the results of intermittent fever, 

 chiefly consisting of derangement in the digestive organs, especially the 

 8|)leen and liver. As I would receive no fees, many were the f)resents 

 which the grateful creatures made me, and 1 was loaded with fish, fowls 

 and fruit. 



"On my return to Pernambuco, I found that about fifty species of liv- 

 ing plants, and upwards of seven hundred specimens had been the 

 amount of my collections, during the four days we had passed on the 

 island of Itamanca." 



ENGLAND, 



Prize Dahlias. — Immediately after our last number went to press, 

 and but a very short time after we penned the paragraph relative to 

 new dahlias, we received some of our London periodicals, in which we 

 find the rejjorts of several of the principal exhibitions. In addition to 

 these, we have been kindly favored by Mr. Widnall with a Candiridge 

 paper of a late date, containing an account of the Caml)ri(lge Florists' 

 Society Exhii)ition, at which some of the t)est dahlia growers in Eng- 

 land, who reside in the neighborhood, displayed tnany first-rate flowers. 



After the past season, so prejudicial to the blooming of the dahlia, 

 that scarcely any of the splendid new varieties introduced last spring 

 have flowered sufficiently to form any true estimate of their properties 

 and real excellence, we have thought that a detailed account of most of 

 the more celebrated exhibitions would be highly acceptable to our read- 

 ers, and assist them in selecting such as it may be supposed, from the 

 nuirierous prizes which they have gained, are the most befiutiful and 

 desirable. To see a dahlia bloom is far better than reading reports, but 

 j'et we believe that, in four cases out of five, a very near estimate of 

 the splendor of a bloom may be gleaned in this trianncr. 



There has been no failure in the bloonn'ng of the dahlia throughout 

 England, so far as we have heard: the exhibitions, according to the 

 reports made, have been of the most magnificent description, and the 

 number of blooms, as well as the number of competitors for prizes, has 

 been far greater than in any previous year. Indeed, it may be said, 

 that the cultivation of the dahlia, so fir from being any where ticnr its 

 height, has hardly escaped from its infincy, and will not ])r()bai>ly be at 

 its zenith for some years. In many of the retnote shiics, those old 

 flowers which we, in our eagerness for new kinds, have long since dis- 



