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156 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 



livens, the bird which embellishes 1t, 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 woh lat al 
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 
beautiful 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 fox- 
glove, the nectareous glands of which he licks 
with his tongue; he squeezes into them his 
little body, which looks in these flowers like an 
emerald set in coral, and sometimes gets so far 
that he may be caught in this situation.” This 





















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