TREE-FEENS. 69 



circle of nearly twenty feet in diameter. There is 

 no very close similarity between a Tree-fern and a 

 Palm in appearance ; there is a remarkable lightness 

 and voluptuousness, if I may be allowed the expres- 

 sion, in the filagree work of the one, produced by 

 the minute subdivision of the immense frond (of 

 which every one may form a feeble notion from the 

 commonest ferns of our heaths), that contrasts with 

 the stiff, simply-pinnate or fan-shaped leaves of the 

 Palms ; yet these latter have a beauty and elegance 

 of their own. 



When the emotion produced by the first sight of 

 these interesting plants had subsided, I still found 

 much to admire in a more minute examination. The 

 formidable prickles studding the knobbed bases of the 

 fronds, that swelled out around the summit of the 

 trunk, like the bulging branches of a candlestick ; 

 the elongated scars on the stem, that marked the 

 position of the fallen fronds ; and especially the 

 basal part, that looked like a mass of intertwining 

 wire, black and shining, as if running down with the 

 concentrated moisture of those damp woods; — all 

 were novel, curious, and pleasing. 



URANIA SLOANUS. 



Leaving, for the present, our description of this 

 elevated region, which on a future occasion we may 

 still further pursue, I will call my reader's attention 

 to one of the most brilliantly lovely of animal forms ; 

 of which this spot forms one of the favourite localities. 

 I speak of Urania, an insect which on account of its 



