162 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
livens, 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 Caro¬ 
lina 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 beau¬ 
tiful 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 eme¬ 
rald set in coral, and sometimes gets so far that 
he may be caught in this situation.” This little 
