The mass of the vegetation is identical with that of the neighbouring continent. But a wanderer from afar appears on the west coast of Ireland and in the Hebrides, which has established itself from transatlantic regions, owing doubtless to seeds having been drifted thither by the Gulf-Stream, still retaining the power of germination. This is the jointed pipewort, a grass-like plant, growing in lakes which have a muddy bottom, and exhibiting small globular heads of flowers. But it bears little resemblance with us to its congeners in their more congenial natural habitation, which are shrubby, from four to six feet high, with leafy branches on their stems, and are prominent features of the vegetation in parts of South America. Another migrant, the threetoothed cinque-foil, abundant in the Rocky Mountains and Arctic America, occurs on a Forfarshire hill in Scotland, to which it is limited. A third intruder, of recent date, the water weed, Anacharsis alsinastrum, first observed in the year 1842, and now well known in the rivers, canals, and drains of the midland counties of England, is supposed to have sprung from seeds brought with timber from Canada during the construction of the railways.

The native flora may be divided into four groups-Germanic; Scandinavian; Asturian; and Armorican, so called from the continental localities where the same species are now found, and whence, in the opinion of Professor Forbes and other geologists, they originally came to our shores. I. The Germanic group comprise the principal components of vegetation, such as Sibaldia procumbeus (a), Arenaria rubella (b), Gentiana nivalis (c), and all the widely diffused species-trees, shrubs, weeds, and wild-flowers -which belong equally to the middle latitudes of Europe. II. The Scandinavian group is chiefly represented in the Highlands of Scotland, to a smaller extent on the loftier mountains and bleak moorlands of England and Wales, and very sparingly in Ireland. It consists of mosses, lichens, and grasses, some highly beautiful flowering plants, and prized berry-bearing shrubs, as the cranberry, bilberry, and cloudberry, which are abundant in Scandinavia, on alpine heights in general, and also in the arctic lowlands. Among those selected for illustration are, Verbascum lychnides (d), Linum perenna, common flax (e), Rubus chamamaeus, the cloudberry (f), Gentiana pneumonanthe (g), Thlaspi

ORIGIN OF NATIVE PLANTS.

perfoliatum, shepherds' purse (h), Dipsacus pilosus, common teazel (i), and Caucalis daucoides, the small burred parsley (k). III and IV. The Asturian and Armorican groups are extremely local. In the hilly regions of the south-west Irish coast, some heaths occur, as Erica Mediterranea (o), St Patrick's cabbage, more commonly known (Saxifraga umbrosa) as London-pride (p), Arabis ciliata, the wall-cress (q), Arbutus unedo, the strawberry-tree (r), and some others not known really wild in any other part of the kingdom, but which are common in the Asturias, on the opposite coast of Spain. This vegetable colonisation is referred to a long bygone geological epoch, when there is supposed to have been solid land from the Spanish peninsula to Ireland, in the place of the now intervening waters, along which the plants gradually travelled from the former to the latter, without being able to proceed further, or multiply in species before the highway was broken up. Similarly on the south-east coast of Ireland and the southwest coast of England, a vegetation appears which is closely allied to that of the opposite shores of Brittany and Normandy, the ancient Armorica, but which is precluded from a more northerly advance by the less genial character of the climate. Such are Rubia peregrina, wild-madder (1), Erica vagans, the Cornish heath (n), and Scrophularia schraedonia, fig-worts (m).

The native woods include the oak, elm, birch, beech, ash, alder, aspen, willow, poplar, maple, pine, yew, holly, hazel, blackthorn, and hawthorn; while the lime, chestnut, walnut, sprucefir, larch, weeping-willow, Lombardy poplar, laburnum, mulberry, and cedar have been introduced by man from foreign countries. The common elm, maple, and beech are peculiarly English, occurring chiefly in southerly localities, diminishing northwards, or not ranging to Scotland. This is the case also with several striking ornamental plants, as the mistletoe, sweet violet, daffodil, mezereon, star of Bethlehem, and the familiar creeper, Clematis vitalba, or 'traveller's joy,'

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teristic of Scotland. There the latter is frequently a very noble object, altogether different to what it appears on the stiff clays of England, for the natural character of the pine is best developed in bleak situations, amid mountains, crags, and waterfalls, where 'Moor'd in the rifted rock,

Proof to the tempest's shock,

Firmer he roots him the ruder it blows,'

Vast tracts of woodland have disappeared from the surface, owing to the increase of population, the extension of culture, and the demand for timber, with the abatement of the passion for the chase. Seventy-seven forests were once enumerated in England alone as the property of the crown. They were successively disafforested till the number was reduced to eleven; but only six of these have now any important extent-the New Forest, in the south-west, and Woolmer Forest, in the southeast of Hampshire; Dean Forest, between the Severn and the Wye; Whittlebury Forest, in the south-east of Northamptonshire; Windsor Forest, Berks; and Delamere Forest, Cheshire. Yet out of a total area somewhat exceeding a hundred thousand acres, little more than one-third is actually woodland. Many parts of the country still retain the denomination of forest, which have entirely lost that distinctive character, as Macclesfield Forest, Cheshire; Needwood Forest, Staffordshire; Charnwood Forest, Leicestershire; and the Forest of Arden, Warwickshire. Among the wild native animals, the large examples are ruminants. They consist of the fallow-deer, semi-domesticated in parks; the red-deer, roaming the solitudes of the north of Scotland in herds, found also in a few retired localities in England and Ireland; the roebuck, limited to the Scottish Highlands; the goat, semi-wild in Wales; and the wild cattle preserved in the parks of the nobility, perhaps the descendants of a domesticated breed which broke from the homesteads in turbulent times, and returned to natural habits in the woods. The carnivorous race is represented by the fox, five of the weasel family, and the otter, formerly much more common than at present; the wild-cat and badger, both very scarce; the hedgehog, found in almost every part of our islands, but not numerous; the mole, very common in England, but not known in Ireland, or north of the Pentland Firth; and nine species of bat. Of the rodents, varieties of the hare and rabbit are generally diffused, as is the squirrel, in England and Scotland; but it has only recently been known in Ireland, by introduction to the county of Wicklow. The reptiles include the blindworm, ringed-snake, and adder, or common viper, the last of which alone is venomous,

NATIVE REPTILES, BIRDS, AND FISHES.

but none of them occur in the sister-kingdom, nor does the common toad. According to popular superstition, St Patrick, the patron saint, cleared the island of the 'varmint' by a malediction. Of upwards of ten thousand British insects known to naturalists, and described by them, somewhat more than one-third range to Ireland. The glowworm is among the absentees, and some of the more splendid of the butterflies.

The feathered tribes number a very large proportion of species, considerably more than one-half of the total belonging to Europe; and individuals are equally numerous with species, notwithstanding much thoughtless destruction. An insular position invites the families of waders and swimmers to the shores, while the great extent of cultivated country, and the abundant vegetation, provide a supply of food for the smaller birds. Some are summer visitors from the southerly latitudes, which range over the entire kingdom, as the cuckoo and swallow; while the two splendid warblers, the nightingale and blackcap, are comparatively local. The nightingale does not visit Scotland, Ireland, or Wales, although M'Gilivray mentions instances of its being heard in the Lothians; nor is it known in Cornwall, the west of Devon, or much further north in England than about the neighbourhood of York. Examples noticed beyond these limits are accidental stragglers. The fig-eater, common in Italy and the south of France, is an annual migrant to the fig-orchards in the neighbourhood of Worthing, Sussex, about the time of the ripening of the fruit. Of the gamebirds, the black grouse is found on moors in England and Scotland, but not in Ireland; the red grouse occurs generally, and is peculiar to the British islands; the white grouse, or ptarmigan, is only met with on the wildest and highest of the Scotch mountains. Most of the common domestic fowl, with the peacock, turkey, and pheasant, are of foreign origin. The seas, rivers, and lakes yield a supply of those varieties of fish in great quantities which are most serviceable for human sustenance-the salmon, cod, herring, mackerel, and pilchard. The last three periodically leave the deep water as the spawning-season approaches, and draw near to the shores in vast swarms, when the respective fisheries are prosecuted with great activity. The herring is the most diffused, though far more abundant on some points of the coast than others; the mackerel is chiefly taken on the southern and south-eastern shores of England; the pilchard shoals confine themselves to its south-western corner, the counties of Cornwall and Devon; the cod abounds on the western shores of Ireland.

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In no part of the world is there known to be an amount of mineral wealth within the same area equal to that of the United Kingdom. Gold occurs; and the Romans conducted regular mining operations for it in Caermarthenshire, Wales. Stream-gold was found on the southern borders of Lanarkshire, Scotland, about the commencement of the sixteenth century; and towards the close of the eighteenth, in the rivers of Wicklow, Ireland. Both discoveries excited considerable expectation, but the search eventually proved unremunerative. Silver is also met with in a native or pure state, and it accompanies galena, a sulphuret of lead, frequently in sufficient quantity to render the extraction profitable. But the mineral stores of inestimable importance are those which are the prime producers of wealth and comfort in the hands of an instructed and industrious people; and these are possessed in vast abundance and convenient juxtaposition. They include iron, copper, lead, tin, zinc, coal, and salt, with other varieties of less consequence, as antimony, manganese, graphite, alum, and fuller's-earth, besides ample supplies of building stone, roofing-slate, marbles, and the clays which are suitable for the commonest ware and the finest porcelain. Tin and lead works are of the oldest date. The tin of Devon and Cornwall was wrought by the ancient Britons, whose mining labours in the latter county, at the extreme angle, are commemorated by the singular excavations, called the 'Pit,' the 'Land's End Hole,' and the Devil's Frying Pan.' Lead was certainly wrought by the Romans, as blocks of the metal bearing Latin inscriptions have been found on the moors of Derbyshire. Mineral waters, or springs impregnated with saline, chalybeate, and sulphureous compounds, variously cold, tepid, and warm, are numerous. But no warm springs occur in Scotland, nor are they known in England further north than the Derbyshire Peak.

The earliest record of the existence of the British Isles at a known date occurs in the writings of Aristotle, who, writing about 340 B. c., refers to them under the names of Albion and Ierne, which are described as the principal members of a group. The former name is supposed to signify the 'fair or white land,' in allusion to the appearance of the chalk-cliffs prominent on the southern coast of England; and the latter applied to Ireland, is commonly regarded as a relative designation, meaning the 'western island.' Rather more than half a century before the Christian era, Julius Cæsar landed on the shores intent on conquest, but made no stay, and accomplished no important result, with the exception of becoming acquainted to some extent with the inhabitants, character and resources of the region, and imparting his knowledge to the civilised world. About a century later, his enterprise was followed up by other leaders, and the larger part of Britain was gradually reduced to the condition of a Roman province. Four centuries later, the declining power of the empire enforced the retirement of the legions, and the aborigines were left independent. They consisted of numerous Celtic tribes belonging to two main branches of the family, the Gaelic and the Cymric, who migrated from the continent prior to the dawn of history, and spoke widely distinct languages, though offshoots of a common stock. The Gael seem to have come first, and to have been driven northward to the Scottish Highlands, and westward into Ireland by the intruding Cymri. With these last-named natives the Romans came chiefly in contact. After the departure of their masters, having largely lost the spirit of freedom by long subjection to them, they fell a prey to Teutonic invaders of the Germanic race, and numbers were reduced to servitude, finally coalescing with them; while others withdrew to the mountain fastnesses of Devon, Cornwall, Cumberland, and Wales, to preserve their liberty, and remained a distinct body. This expatriated class received the name of Wilisc-men, 'strangers' or 'foreigners,' expressive of their relation to the new-comers, while their territory was called Wilisc-land, terms from which Welshman and Wales have been formed. But the