makes a very good relish Some kinds are full of

and Devonshire, is pickled, and to meat when eaten very hot. gluey matter; one growing in Ireland is called Carigeen moss, and is sometimes boiled down into jelly; and that which is found on the coast of Java is the substance of which the swallows build the nests that the Chinese make

into soup.

There is a turkey-feather sea-weed, which any one near the shore should look for, and may perchance find, as it grows in shallow pools left by the tide in the hollows of rocks. I have never seen it, but my books say no one can mistake it; it is shaped like a fan, or like the short broad feathers of a turkey, and is covered with minute hair-like fibres, which catch the light, so that the frond shines with rainbow colours, and deserves its Latin name of the peacock. It grows in plenty in the Mediterranean, and is also found on our southern English coasts. Pray search for it.

The oyster green is a large pale-green frond, not unlike a bit of some torn leaf. It is often used to cover oysters, which is the reason it is so called.

We now come to the red kinds, those beautifully delicate things that we see polished through the shallow water, and that look very well even when spread out on paper. They have no English names, unfortunately, for people have been very apt to overlook them, like the fisherman who, when a botanist spread out a little branched specimen of clear rosy-red which he had just found, said, "he did not think there could be anything so bonnie to be got in the bay."

How bonnie they are you must learn by your own eyes, and perhaps you may some day go further into their history. I can tell you very little about them, but I

must not pass over the corallines, which stand on the borders of animal, vegetable, and mineral, something between the three.

You have heard of the coral worm that extracts from the sea-water the lime of which they build those wondrous stony dwellings which may in time become rocks and islands. The question is scarcely settled whether these red, hard, branching sea-weeds, the corallines, are vegetables or the houses of animals. They are full of lime, quite stiff and hard, and if held to a candle will give a beautiful white light. One white coralline, which is extremely hard, is used as part of the mortar of the Cathedral of Iona, which is so hard that it is easier to break the stones than to displace them. Another builder uses it—a tiny shell-fish, whose own house is too small for him, as he has a beautiful orange fringework projecting beyond his shell.

To guard this soft unprotected part

the little creature builds himself a grotto of bits of stone, and of almost equally hard coralline, all bound together with silk of his own spinning, and softly lined with the same. There's a wonder of the deep for you!

Conferva is the name of the slimy green hairy weed found on stones and rocks within high-water mark, spreading out when the water comes to it, and drying up and becoming like a green crust when left to itself. It is another of those which may either be plant or animal.

Powerful microscopes discover in it what opens to us another field of our own ignorance. They find that inside the thin skin that covers it there are an untold host of little grains, or atoms, each with a tiny beak, and that these are like live things dancing, whirling round each other, reeling, twirling backwards and forwards, and round

and round, not regularly, but as if each had a movement at its own will.

Sometimes they multiply, come thicker together, divide into little parties, and form a new membrane or outside case; and this motion only takes place at sunrise. At other times of the day they are still. What are they? Are they analagous to seed? Is the sea-weed a plant, or is it a case of living beings? Will man ever be able to

answer?

One sort grows
Another kind,

These strange things are not found only in the sea; there are many sorts to be found in fresh water, especially stagnant pools, which they line with green. You have seen some of them hundreds of times, and know their disagreeable green shiny look, but those who have examined them tell us of their beauty. on stones and is very like toad's-spawn. the oscillatoria, long green hairy stuff that oscillates with the movement of the stream, is thought really to have a motion of its own, to be first cousin, if no nearer, to animals, and to be able at certain times of the year to move from place to place.

Why? And here again we stop short. It is our last of these never-to-be-answered inquiries that I have led you to, for this is the end of the Chapters on Flowers, and I am sorry for it, my little readers, for they have been a great pleasure to me. They have taught me much that was new, and made me look deeper into books to clear my notions and certify what I knew before; they have set me watching, more than I did before, the lovely things in nature; they have turned my mind back to many precious recollections of happy hours and friends of old days; and I hope that thinking about all these has helped me, as I trust it may help some of you, to think

more about the Power and Goodness that made the "field joyful, and all that is in it; planted trees for a dwelling for the birds of the air, and prepared grass for the cattle, green herb for the service of man, wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and bread to strengthen man's heart."

All study of nature must turn to His honour and glory, if only used aright. Perhaps some day you will learn far more than I can teach you, some, it may be from books, but all can and may, from a humble, obedient, adoring heart and eye, that turns from God's works to God Himself. That love is true wisdom, and the flowers of the field are precious to us, as helping us to reach up to it.

COMMON ENGLISH PLANTS 1

CLASS I.-EXOGENS.

Growers from within

SUB-CLASS I. RECEPTACLE FLOWERS

Seed leaves, parts in fives and fours

Stamens, Pistil, and Corolla springing from under the germ, from the receptacle.

CROWFOOT TRIBE

All with many sepals, many stamens, and from five to ten petals-very small calyx.

Buttercup, 17.

Goldylocks, 17.

Water Crowfoot, 17.

Celandine, 18.

Kingcup, or Marsh Marigold, 18.

Anemone or Windflower, 14.

Meadow Rue.

Traveller's Joy, or Old Man's Beard.

THE WATER LILY TRIBE

Calyx lasting-fruit forming are more divided-large flat leaves floating on the water.

White Water Lily, 98.

Yellow Water Lily, 98.

THE POPPY TRIBE

The sepals falling off as the flower opens-one large carpel

1 This is not an index but a list of common plants, with references to such as are described in the text.