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are mostly very abundant, especially in Scotland, which 
is, emphatically, the “ land of brown heath ; ” there it is 
to be seen covering large tracts of moorish waste land 
with its bright and fragrant blossoms, and, along with its 
elegant and hardy companion, the bell-flower or harebell, 
tufting every ruined battlement, and peeping between 
the crevices of every splintered rock. They are thus 
linked together by the bard who could best appreciate 
their simple charms: — 
“ Let Albyn bind her bonnet blue 
With heath and harebell dipt in dew.” 
This idea of choosing the heath as a sort of national 
emblem may have been suggested to the poet by the 
circumstance of different species being the badges of 
some of the clans ; the Erica tetralix (which is depicted 
in the plate) being the device of the McDonalds, and 
the Erica cinerea, or fine-leaved heath, belonging to the 
clan M‘Alister. But whilst we delight, when wandering 
among the wild glens and moors of the Highlands, to 
see the 
-“ Gentle modest heather-bell 
Gladden its lonely birth-place: ” 
yet, viewing it as the accompaniment of barrenness and 
aridity, we cannot regret its absence from the laughing 
