BRITISH FLOWERS IN NEW ZEALAND. 183 
To those who have sympathy with bird-life, who have 
watched birds in their native haunts, and listened to the mar- 
vellous melodies which must charm even the callous and 
unthinking, a Avalk through the Dials is fraught with pain. 
Here are dozens of goldfinches, beating to shreds their yellow 
wings in cages but a few inches square. Here are rows of 
skylarks to be bought for sixpence each, pining for the blue sky 
in which they shall never soar again. Many have given up 
the struggle, and with closed eye and ruffled plumage are wait- 
ing for the release which speedily will come. The temptation 
is great to empty pocket and purse in purchasing their liberty, 
but the knowledge that their places would be filled by new 
victims to-morrow restrains. And yet cannot something be done ? 
Cannot one or two be saved ? How much for that one with its 
head under its wing ? It will not live an hour. And that one 
with feathers extended till it seems but a ball of fluff ? It is 
dying fast. And that one in the corner — and the next, and the 
next ? All will die before night. They are useless to you, give 
them to me, and then away to the nearest green open space. 
Will they live till we reach it ? Open the basket, they will not 
attempt to fly away. But place one on the grass near that 
bush. It feels the free air of heaven around it. It lifts its 
head and sees no longer the dingy street and gazing crowd. It 
spreads its wings, and does not bruise them against prison bars. 
And then, how marvellous the change ! The dull eye brightens, 
the disordered plumage becomes sleek, the dying wishes to live, 
and away it goes, back to its own place, to live its true life, and 
to give again to the listening world its sweet song of gladness 
and of hope. 
Fred. W. Ashley. 
BRITISH WILD FLOWERS IN NEW ZEALAND. 
^ OTH from their methods of propagation and manner of 
arrival, the spread of British wild flowers in a new land 
is full of interest. Though rather warm for our moun- 
tain and alpine species, the climate of the southern 
portion of the North Island is admirably adapted for most 
British plants. As all the work about us is done on horseback, 
and therefore great distances traversed almost every day, there 
are good opportunities of noting their first arrival and subsequent 
spread. 
The weeping willow is nearly an evergreen, losing its leaves 
late in June, and within a month the clinging brown scales burst 
with green at the tips. The pines never cease growing. I have 
seen the watercress in bloom in mid-winter ; then, too, the air is 
