Nettles .— The Comet. 
155 
Scarcely any beast will touch the Urtica dioica: so that we 
may infer that it ripens its seeds in large quantities, which, 
after the plant has been once introduced, will be rapidly spread 
over the country, by adhering to the coats of cattle, sheep, and 
other animals. Another British species of nettle, the Urtica 
ureas, has also been naturalized in the Colony: both are, 
however, distinct from our Tasmanian species, which grows 
usually in the scrubs and thickets where the soil is rich, and 
attains to the height of six to ten feet. 
I may here quote a passage from Lyell’s Principles of G.eology, 
vol. iii,, p. 105, 6th ed., On the Agency of Man in the Dis¬ 
persion of Plants. “ But, besides the plants used \n agricul¬ 
ture, the number which have been naturalized by accident, or 
which man has spread unintentionally, is considerable. One of 
our old authors, Josselyn, gives a catalogue of such plants as 
had, in his time, sprung up in the Colony since the English 
planted and kept cattle in New England. They were two- 
and-twenty in number. The common nettle was the first 
which the settlers noticed; and the plantain was called by the 
Indians 1 Englishman’s foot,’ as if it sprung from their foot¬ 
steps.” B. 
THE COMET. 
This splendid stranger was first seen in Tasmania, on the 
evening of the 1st of March, by a gentleman, whose attention 
was arrested by a luminous streak in the sky to the W.S.W.; 
but as, from its proximity to the sun, only a very small portion 
of the tail could then be possibly visible, he was ignorant of 
its nature, and took no further notice of it. 
A clear cloudless evening on the 4th of March rendered it 
distinctly visible; and, as night drew on, it was seen culminating 
in great splendour behind Mount Wellington. 
Ere the sun had touched the horizon on the evening of the 
6th, its whole extent became visible to the naked eye: and 
such was the wonderful tenuity of the tail, that stars which 
would have been entirely concealed by the slightest fog, or 
mist, were seen shining through it in all parts without the 
smallest refraction. The lateral edges, of the tail reflected 
more light than the central part, producing an effect somewhat 
similar to two streams of the Aurora ; and the head, or nucleus, 
consisted of a concentrated mass of light, surrounded by a very 
transparent atmosphere, which baffled all attempts to reduce it 
to a luminous point with a telescope of ordinary power. The 
streams of light which formed the edges of the tail united 
about midway between the nucleus and extreme end of the tail; 
and, to the naked eye, the nucleus occasionally assumed the ap¬ 
pearance of a stellar point situated in the middle of the nebu¬ 
lous matter. 
