throughout England and Ireland. It is hardly to be met with in Scotland. It is one of the prettiest ornamental perennials in still waters, and might be introduced with good effect into our garden ponds, amongst other aquatic plants. "Its leaves are so pellucid, that with the aid of a magnifying glass, the circulation of the sap through its vessels can be distinctly seen." Occasionally, this plant bears flowers with six petals; and Ray says that he found double-flowered ones, very sweet-scented, in the Isle of Ely, but it does not seem to have been noticed since his time.

The Frog Bit (Morsus Ranca), blooming in June and July, belongs to the Linnæan class Diæcia, order Enneandria; and to the Natural order Hydrocharideœ.

VENUS'S SLIPPER.

Cypripedium; L. Sabot de la Vierge, or, Soulier de Notre Dame; Fr. Der Venusschuh; Ger. Vrouweschoen; Dutch. Pantoffola; Ital Zueco; Sp. Calçado de Nuessa Senhora; Port. Kokuschkiny Saposchki; Russ.

As season follows season in appointed order, we seem to feel them all alike beautiful. Each has charms peculiarly its own. We rarely appear to regret, speaking generally, the departure of spring when summer is at hand, though we rejoiced greatly at the approach of the former, and were delighted by its renovating power. But the pleasures of summer are not the less gratifying. They differ somewhat in kind, for as spring dawns upon us, we are glad to emerge from our abodes at mid-day, and feel the invigorating effect of the meridian sun. Our eyes feast upon the fresh green of the herbage, and the pale beauty of the bursting foliage which begins to adorn each tree of the woodland and the forest. All nature seems to be reanimated. But when summer comes, we avail ourselves of the cool spring of day, or of the pleasant evening, for our walks; unless, perchance, we have woods and copses near us, into whose deep shades we can plunge and screen ourselves from the scorching sun. There, we can delight ourselves by inspecting the riches of vegetation, concealed beneath the leafy branches of spreading trees. How refreshing are such excursions as these! There we may commune with Nature in her most retired haunts. There, perchance, we may more easily concentrate our thoughts of the grand and the beautiful in the universe. The busy,

SECOND SERIES.

M

ever-shifting eye, cannot there convey such a multitude of objects to the mind as to divert and dissipate its reflections. There we may summon up all the past, and haply feel joys and pleasures which thousands are incapable of participating in.

I hear a voice borne on the breeze

Which falls not on thine ear,
A music in the swelling seas

Which wakes a pensive tear;

I hear a tone all melody

When the night wind breathes its last,
When flowers are closing silently

I commune with the past.

I see fond looks thou canst not see
In the sunset's fading red,

In the grass that waves so mournfully
Above the happy dead;

In the pale sad stars that nightly gleam
On the lone forsaken grave,

In the golden streak of morning's beam,
As it flashes o'er the wave.

Oh! ask me not what joys I find
In the murmurs of the rill,

The pathless woods, the rushing wind,
The glen, or lonely hill;

When every bud that opes its rays

To scent the summer air,

Calls from the past some happier days,

Can I be lonely there?

A thousand springs 'mid nature rise
To quench the spirit's grief,
A wealth of hallowed memories
Which bring the heart relief;
A blossom in each lonely nook

Some feeling to engage,
To thee, perchance, a sealed book,
To me a meaning page.