446 CONCLUSION. 



favour me with their communications, and assist them in the 

 determination of the productions of the localities in which 

 they reside. 



Apart from the interest attached to the examination of the 

 individual species, there is a source of pleasure in the addi- 

 tional interest which is imparted to our rambles : each sj^ot 

 that Ave pass is rendered doubly interesting — is almost hal- 

 lowed — by the recollection of its being the place in Avhich we 

 first became acquainted with some rare or new production, 

 which at the time awakened our curiosity, stimulated inquiry, 

 and elicited admiration. 



I cannot do better than conclude these few remarks in the 

 appropriate language of the eloquent Vaucher : — 



" I fear not to propose similar occupations to all men who 

 have a taste for observation, and who love the beauties of 

 nature. If their position and their fortune permits them 

 some leisure, they cannot employ it more happily. When- 

 ever natural history has a fixed purpose, and that some 

 object of study is made choice of, the labours to Avhich we 

 submit ourselves become more agreeable, and at the same 

 time more useful. Those botanists who shall make dis- 

 coveries in this science, which presents so vast a field, not 

 only will experience a real pleasure, but moreover they will 

 preserve the remembrance of it. Each time that they ap- 

 proach the place which has been the theatre of them, it will 

 recal to them the objects with which it is associated. For 

 myself I avoAV that I see not without interest the place 

 where I perceived for the first tfme the floating seeds of my 

 ectospermes, nor that where I obtained the network of the 

 hydrodictyon in its first development. Tlie species of Con- 

 fervcB even which I have long visited, and the fructification 

 of which I have ascertained but with difiiculty, inspire in me 

 a kind of attachment Avhich I feel more than I am able to 

 express. I love to see spring up and develope themselves 

 near me those species with which I am, so to speak, in ac- 

 quaintance. I exj)erience some pain if I know that any 

 one of them come to be destroyed. This acquaintance 

 Avhich I have acquired seems to me a kind of empire Avhich 



