CHAPTER II. 



" To him who, in the love of nature, holds 

 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 

 A various language: for his gayer hours 

 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 

 And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 

 Into her darker musings with a mild 

 And healing sympathy that steals away 

 Their sharpness, ere he is aware."— Bryant 



There are few things, in this world of ours, more hallowing and 

 more purifying than a love of wild-flowers — " those terrestrial stars 

 that bring down heaven to earth, and carry up our thoughts from 

 earth to heaven ;" and never were we more struck with this feel- 

 ing than on sailing up the beautiful river Yarra Yarra one bright 

 summer morning, after a tedious voyage of nearly four months, 

 and seeing around us on every side something new to cheer and 

 awaken our affections for our adopted land : new plants — new 

 birds — new insects — with our favourite, the swallow, " cheeping 

 and twittering" as of old, endeared to us ever by Tennyson's beau- 

 tiful lines : — 



"O Swallow, swallow, flying, flying south, 

 Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 

 And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 



" O Swallow, swallow, if I could follow and light 

 Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, 

 And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 



u O were I thou that she might take me in, 

 And lay me in her bosom, and her heart 

 Would rock the snowy cradle till I died." 



We take it for granted that our readers will not inquire, as 

 many have done, " What is the use of studying flowers, and what 

 is gained by it ?" Is this the spirit in which we should look on the 



