In a Sea-side Forest. 179 



Here variety ruled, and only the choicest of Na- 

 ture's handiwork had foothold. Think of it! 

 Century after century Nature had had full sway, 

 and turned out a finished piece of work. Every 

 sense is charmed ; eye, ear, and nose are alike 

 regaled; the sense of touch delighted. Perfect 

 trees to look upon ; the birds' songs and the moan- 

 ing of the sea to hear ; the bloom of a thousand 

 roses to smell; the carpeted sand to lie upon. 

 Yet, where all was nearing perfection, there stood 

 out one grand feature overtopping all else, — scores 

 of magnificent hollies. I had seen many of these 

 trees before, but never where they gave a distinct 

 character to the woods. Elsewhere they occur in 

 clumps of three or four, or perhaps a dozen, but 

 here, on an island by the sea, there are hundreds. 

 One that I measured was sixty-eight inches in 

 circumference and forty feet high. The pale-gray 

 trunk was well mottled with curious black lichen, 

 and among the branches drooped long tresses of 

 beard-like lichen. The pathless wood about it 

 was a most fit surrounding, the abundant birds its 

 appropriate comrades, the murmur of the sea the 

 music to which its branches gently swayed. To 



