162 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
which enlivens, the bird which embellishes it, and 
the quadruped which feeds upon its leaves and re- 
poses in its shade. 
Look at the Carolina Jasmine! With its beautiful 
foliage and scarlet flowers, it remains an alien 
among us. For our parts, we prefer to it our sweet 
native honeysuckle, to which the bee resorts to 
suck its honey, the goat to browse on its leaves, 
and flocks of thrushes, linnets, finches, and other 
small birds, to feast upon its berries. No doubt 
the rich Jasmine of Carolina would counterbalance 
all these advantages in our estimation, were we to 
see it enlivened by the humming-bird of Florida, 
which, in the vast forests of the New World, 
prefers its beautiful foliage to that of every other 
tree. " He builds his nest," says St. Pierre, " in 
one of the leaves of this plant, which he rolls up 
into the form of a cone : he finds his subsistence in 
its red flowers, resembling those of the foxglove, 
the nectareous glands of which he licks with his 
tongue ; he squeezes into them his little body, which 
looks in these flowers like an emerald set in 
coral, and sometimes gets so far that he may be 
caught in this situation." This little creature is 
the soul, the life, an essential accompaniment, of 
