VI PREFACE. 



The season of spring, late though it was in 1856, had left us, 

 and leafy June was in the wane. The spring flowers of Scot- 

 land were nearly all numbered with the dead, and her summer 

 beauties had been nipped by the norlan blast. The time had 



" When blooms the Lily by the bank, 



The Primrose down the brae ; 

 The Hawthorn's budding in the glen, 

 And milk-white is the Slae." 



We were in the Highlands at that season celebrated by the 

 great minstrel of Scotland thus : 



" When summer smiled on sweet Bow Hill, 

 And July's eve, with balmy breath, 

 Waved the Bluebells on Newark Heath ; 

 When throstles sang on Harehead Shaw, 

 And corn waved green on Carter Haugh, 

 And flourished broad Blackandro's Oak," etc. 



Summer however rather frowned than smiled upon us. We 

 saw the "Bluebells" indeed, and many other flowers equally 

 beautiful ; but we heard little of the throstle's song, and saw but 

 little of the waving green corn. 



But we did not go to Scotland to hear the birds sing, nor to 

 see fair fields of either green or yellow crops. We could have 

 seen and enjoyed all these at less expense much nearer our own 

 hearths and homes. Our motives for peregrmizmg were, as has 

 been said, neither botanical nor pictorial; we went neither in 

 search of plants nor of the picturesque : our objects were of a 

 mixed nature : but enough, and perhaps too much, has already 

 been said about them. As we have a page to fill up with some- 

 what, we beg to inform our readers (we mean the readers of the 

 ' Phytologist') that their patience will not again be so severely- 

 taxed. They will not henceforth be treated with "cauld kail 



