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wind free passage through the interstices, securing them 
alike from an overpowering accumulation of the one, 
and from the resistless fury of the other. It is also 
chiefly owing to this peculiar form of the leaves, which 
do not admit die reflection of much light, that trees of 
this description wear such a dark, lugubrious appearance; 
and that, furthermore, by presenting so many points and 
edges, die wind makes amongst them that “ wintry 
music,” so powerfully affecting to the imaginative wan¬ 
derer, soodiing or rousing him, according to the part it 
sustains in the grand chorus of nature. Burns, with all 
a poet’s feeling, speaks of the enjoyment he experienced 
from this wild minstrelsy. ' Whilst listening to its varied 
cadences on a cloudy winter day, he remarks, “It is 
my best season for devotion; my mind is wrapt up in a 
kind of enthusiasm to Him who, in the pompous language 
of the Hebrew bard, ‘ walketh on the wings of the 
wind.’ ” 
The Scotch fir, taking all things into consideration, is 
esteemed the most valuable of the pines. “It is the 
only one indigenous in the north and west of Europe, 
and grows abundantly in all the countries north of the 
Balric, to the seventieth degree of latitude.” 
But it does not confine itself to these parts : it is found 
on the Carpathian mountains, the Pyrenees, and the 
