inhabit the Island, individual rareties appear most unex- 

 pectedly, and prove themselves additions to that already 

 extensive catalogue compiled by the chief clerks of our 

 local flora. 



Thus with some of the members of that collecting 

 and tramping fraternity, of which the Island possesses a 

 goodly number, I went afield, but more often I rambled 

 alone. Nature seems to speak more directly to a lone 

 rambler, and to a number of persons in company she 

 rarely says a word. Two, at most, can tread evenly the 

 same path, can be touched by the same sense, and echo to 

 each other with pleasant minor changes, the influences of 

 the way. 



In character these pages are miscellaneous as were 

 the excursions they commemorate, and they might have 

 been much extended, but perhaps a small potion of an 

 untried compound will be preferred by the reader. It is 

 the fashion to condemn, and I do not expect the majority 

 to be at variance with that mood, but perhaps to some 

 loiterer by the hedge-rows, I may speak sincerely, and he 

 will prize the result of my humble effort to write something 

 of nature and old Staten Island. W. T. D. 



New Brighton, 



