Cir] AND SYMBOLS. 47 



posed that regions so scantily supplied with one of the first 

 necessaries of life could be nothing else than waste and lifeless 

 deserts : and yet, strange to say, they are distinguished for their 

 comparatively abundant vegetation, and their immense develop- 

 ment of animal life. The evil produced by want of rain has 

 been counteracted by the admirable foresight of the Creator in 

 providing these arid lands with plants suited to their trying 

 circumstances. The vegetation is eminently local and special. 

 Nothing like it is seen elsewhere on the face of the earth. 

 Is early all the plants have tubrous roots, buried far beneath the 

 ground, beyond the scorching effects of the sun, and are com- 

 posed of succulent tissues, filled with a deliciously cool and 

 refreshing fluid. They have also thick fleshy leaves, with pores 

 capable of imbibing and retaining moisture from a very dry 

 atmosphere and soil ; so that if a leaf be broken during the 

 greatest drought, it shows abundant circulating sap. Nothing 

 can look more unlike the situations in which they are found 

 than these succulent roots, full of fluid, when the surrounding 

 soil is dry as dust, and the enveloping air seems utterly destitute 

 of moisture ; replete with nourishment and life when all within 

 the horizon is desolation and death. They seem to have a 

 special vitality in themselves ; and, unlike all other plants, to 

 be independent of circumstances. B. 



Power of Utilising Circumstances. 



Humming-birds, colibris, and their brothers of every hue, 

 live with impunity in the fearful forests where tropical Nature, 

 under forms oftentimes of great beauty, wages her keenest strife 

 in those gleaming solitudes where danger lurks on every side : 

 among the most venomous insects, and upon those most mourn- 

 ful plants whose every shade kills. One of them (crested, green, 

 and blue), in the Antilles, suspends his nest to the most terrible 

 and fatal of trees, to the spectre whose fatal glance seems to 

 freeze your blood for ever, to the deadly manchineal. It is this 

 parroquet, which boldly crops the fruits of the fearful tree, 

 feeds upon them, assumes their livery, and appears, from its 

 sinister green, to draw the metallic lustre of its triumphant wings. 

 Life in these winged flames, the humming-bird and the colibri, 



