COLL. GENERAL DESCRIPTION. 59 



abound here also, perfuming the air around, and in the 

 season of flowering, prevailing so as to conceal the verdure 

 from the eye. A small tract, known by the name of the 

 variegated plain, presents an enamelled carpet of unde- 

 scribable gayety, being covered with all the ordinary 

 meadow plants, together with a profusion of the brilliant 

 crimson flowers of Geranium sanguineum. Spring has 

 here a character no less remarkable for its novelty 

 than its splendour. Although protracted till late in 

 June, and though no trees are seen bursting into leaf, 

 the colours which deck the ground, the perfume that fills 

 the air, and the melodious note of the wood-lark, 

 produce an effect, striking both in itself and in its 

 contrast with the desert of rocks and the wide ocean 

 which every where meet the eye. 



Besides the plants just mentioned, a few others, 

 less common, are met with in profusion through- 

 out the island. These are, Thalictrum minus, Ophrys 

 ovata, Satyrium hircinum, Orchis conopsea, Orchis mascu- 

 la, Sedum anglicum, Rosa spinosissima. Crambe maritima 

 occurs also in abundance along the sandy shores on the 

 western side, and the beautiful Osmunda regalis is found 

 abundantly in the interior and moister parts of the island, 

 while the small lakes are covered with the brilliant flowers 

 of Nymphoea alba, and the less conspicuous Potomogeton 

 heterophyllum. Coll, however, cannot be said, any more 

 than Tirey or the other islands of these seas, to possess 

 many plants remarkable for their rarity. But the Erio- 

 caulon decangulare, hitherto found only in Sky, forms 

 an exception to this remark, growing in some of the 

 central lakes in company with Lobelia dortmanna, and 

 attaining a much larger size than it exhibits in that 

 island. 



In the agriculture of Coll there is little to be remarked, 

 if we except some superiority of management arising 

 from the example and knowledge of the proprietor, which 

 would not be a repetition of what has already been said on 



