INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMIC GRASSES. 69 



tears." The largest and most delicately tinted that we 

 have seen were brought from Jamaica. In the Museum 

 at Kew, the dress of a Fijian girl in exhibited which is 

 composed entirely of these grains ; it consists of a band 

 of many rows of the beads, and a deep fringe hanging 

 from it, — certainly a very simple style of costume ! The 

 Fijians manufacture many articles of ornament from 

 these natural beads, and set fringes of them round the 

 mats of their chiefs. They are much liked for bracelets 

 by British ladies, especially those who prefer quiet tints 

 to gaudy ones. 



This beneficent family of herbs has remarkably few 

 harmful or deleterious members. The seeds of Lolium 

 temulentum and of Festaca quadridentata are ac- 

 counted unwholesome, but all others are excellent and 

 nutritious. The long twisted awns of Stipa spartia are 

 destructive to the sheep in the Red River colony, for 

 they fix themselves in the wool, and from thence pene- 

 trate the flesh, causing sores which occasionally prove 

 fatal. The Spear-grass of New Zealand lacerates the 

 feet of horses and cattle with its sharp spines, and in- 

 flicts painful wounds on the hands and legs of settlers, 

 so that it is accounted the special pest of the province. 

 But for these offensive species we have hundreds that 

 are nutritious in every part for cattle, and serviceable 

 for many uses, industrious, medicinal, or ornamental. 



