The YOtfflC HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Paet 60. NOVEMBER, 1884. Vol. 5. 



PERFUMES OF PLANTS 



By J. P. Soutter, Bishop Auckland. 



i{ f** O call the vales and bid them hither 



^ bring 

 Their bells and flowrets of a thousand scents." 



Of all the varied attributes which 

 combine to produce those gems of 

 Mora's crown, and who are endeared 

 to us by their elegance of form or 

 charm of colour, there is nothing more 

 powerfully attractive, and yet so subtle 

 and imponderable, as the delicious 

 perfume which emanates from our 

 floral favourites. Who is there so in- 

 susceptible to the bland wooings of 

 nature that he cannot recall the scent 

 of a hawthorn hedge vocal with bird 

 melody in a dewy morning of early 

 June; or the odour of the newly- 

 mown fields of hay, wafted for miles 

 on the soft summer zephyrs, which 



come laden with — 



" Many a wild perfume, 

 Greeting the wanderer of the hill and grove 



Like sudden music." 

 Whose feet have not been arrested in 

 a country ramble by the first whiff of 

 luscious odour from a field of beans 

 in full flower, or lingered lovingly by 

 the incense-breathing sweetbriar that 



fringed the highway ? Is anything 

 more inseparably associated with the 

 returning joys of spring than "the 

 scent of violets hidden in the grass," 

 when — 



" Their faint perfume 

 Alone is in the virgin air." 



So delicate and delicious are these 

 emanations that they seem the nearest 

 approach to the ethereal or spirit-like 

 substance, the inner essence of things, 

 that our corporeal senses are able to 

 appreciate. It, therefore, seems little 

 less than sacrilege to inquire as to the 

 why and wherefore of the reason that 

 certain flowers are endowed with fra- 

 grance whilst others are entirely devoid 

 of perfume, at least, to our senses. 

 This is a very necessary limitation, 

 because it can scarcely in the present 

 day be upheld that the perfumes of 

 flowers were primarily originated to 

 tickle the olfactory organs of man, 

 even if he be the lord of creation. It 

 is now universally conceded that the 

 external forms of flowers, their eccen- 

 tricity of shape, and peculiarities of 

 structure, are adaptations for the visits 

 of the insect world; whilst the rich 

 hues of dazzling colour in which the 



