if he does do so as well as Dash did--whatever you may think
of Mr. Mackinnon--I think Mr. Mackinnon will soon cease to regard Ponto
as--a nasty next-door neighbour."

THE PRINCES OF VEGETATION.

This fanciful and high-sounding title was given by the great Swedish
botanist, Linnaeus, to a race of plants which are in reality by no means
distantly allied to a very humble family--the family of Rushes.

The great race of Palms puzzled the learned Swede. He did not know where
to put them in his system; so he gave them an appendix all to
themselves, and called them the Princes of Vegetation.

The appendix cannot have been a small one, for the Order of Palms is
very large. About five hundred different species are known and named,
but there are probably many more.

They are a very beautiful order of plants; indeed, the striking elegance
of their forms has secured them a prominence in pictures, poetry, and
proverbs, which makes them little less familiar to those who live in
countries too cold for them to grow in, than to those whose home, like
theirs, is in the tropics. The name Palm (Latin, _Palma_) is supposed to
have been applied to them from a likeness in the growth of their
branches to the outspread palm of the hand; and the fronds of some of
the fan-palms are certainly not unlike the human hand, as commonly drawn
by street-boys upon doors and walls.

So beautiful a tree, when it flourished in the symbol-loving East, was
sure to be invested with poetical and emblematical significance.
Conquerors were crowned with wreaths of palm, which is said to have been
chosen as a symbol of victory, because of the elasticity with which it
rises after the pressure of the heaviest weight--an explanation,
perhaps, more appropriate to it as the emblem of spiritual triumphs--the
Palm of Martyrdom and the Palms of the Blessed.

But as a religious symbol it is not confined to the Church triumphant.
Not only is the "great multitude which no man can number" represented to
us as "clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands"--the word
"palmer" records the fact that he who returned from a pilgrimage to the
Holy Land was known, not only by the cockle-shell on his gown, but by
the staff of palm on which he leant. St. Gregory also alludes to the
palm-tree as an accepted emblem of the life of the righteous, and adds
that it may well be so, since it is rough and bare below, and expands
above into greenness and beauty.

The palm her