156 



THE NATURALIST'S AUTUMNAL WALK. 



flower-stalk, and the calyx, the genus Victoria resembles the Indian genus 

 Euryale ; from which it differs in several essential points of structure. It differs 

 from Nymphcea, to which, as observed by Dr. Lindley, it is much more closely 

 allied, in some important characters upon which it is unnecessary to dwell. From 

 Mr. Schomburgk , s description of the leaves, and from specimens of the flowers 

 transmitted by that gentleman in salt and water to the Royal Geographical 

 Society, Dr. Lindley has been enabled to give the following character. 



VICTORIA. 



Calyx campanulatus limbo 4-partito deciduo. Petala indefmita, fauce calycis 

 inserta, exteriora patentissima, interiora incurva multo minora. Stamina plurima 

 petaloidea, fauce calycis inserta ; exteriora fertilia libera, interiora sterilia 

 cornuta stigmatibus a tergo adnata. Ovarium inferum multiloculare ; loculis 

 polyspermis ; ovulis parietalibus ; stylis in campanulam sulcatam, tubum calycis 

 vestientem connatis ; stigmatibus maximis reniformibus, carnosis. Fructus 

 campanulatus, truncatus, carnosus, intra basin capsulam gerens medio longe 

 rostratam, polyspermam. 



THE NATURALIST'S AUTUMNAL WALK. 



" The little excursions of the naturalist, from habit and from acquirement, 

 become a scene of constant observation and remark. The insect that crawls, the 

 note of the bird, the plant that flowers, or the vernal green leaf that peeps out, 

 engages his attention, is recognised as an intimate, or noted from some novelty 

 that it presents in sound or aspect. Every season has its peculiar product, and 

 is pleasing or admirable from causes that variously affect our different tempera- 

 ments or dispositions ; but there are accompaniments in an autumnal morning's 

 woodland walk, that call for all our notice and admiration ; the peculiar feeling 

 of the air, and the solemn grandeur of the scene around us, dispose the mind to 

 contemplation and remark ; there is a silence in which we hear everything, a 

 beauty that will be observed. The stump of an old oak is a very landscape, with 

 rugged alpine steeps bursting through forests of verdant mosses, with some pale, 

 denuded, branchless lichen, like a scathed oak, creeping up the sides or crowning 

 the summit. Rambling with unfettered grace, the tendrils of the Briony ( Tamus 

 communis) festoon with its brilliant berries, green, yellow, red, the slender sprigs 

 of the hazel, or the thorn ; it ornaments their plainness, and receives a support 

 its own feebleness denies. The agaric, with all its hues, its shades, its elegant 

 variety of forms, expands its cone sprinkled with the freshness of the morning ; a 

 transient fair, a child of decay, that " sprang up in a night, and will perish in a 

 night." The squirrel, agile with life and timidity, gamboling round the root of 

 an ancient beech, its base overgrown with the dewberry (Rubus ccesins), blue with 



