8 VOICES FROM THE WOODLANDS. 



and such as you find them in this wild spot are our habitats 

 throughout creation. Children of the rock are we, often 

 growing on sterile and lonely heights, where the winds of 

 heaven fiercely contend, and the sleety shower beats with 

 unpitying violence ! No rock so sterile, but we seek to 

 embellish it ; no stone may lift its bare forehead amid the 

 grass, but we haste to shed over it somewhat of the aspect of 

 vegetation. We incrust ofttimes old balustrades and broken 

 columns, and vary the worn surface of many a venerable 

 pile, which has nought else of beauty to commend it. 

 Beacon plants are we, noting the rock from which we 

 spring ; for as our brother, the violet-scented lichen, grows 

 on rocks and stones of quartz, so is the calcareous peculiar 

 to those of lime formation, that he who passes may readily 

 distinguish them apart, however thickly incrusted ; the 

 latter, too, when dried and powdered, imparts a brilliant 

 scarlet, and is much used in dyeing by the .Welsh and 

 Scotch. 



Thus beautifully diversifying, with an exquisite variety of 



