that largest of all nuts, the
Cocoa-nut.

These trees and plants which I have mentioned, and many more equally
beautiful, are all natives of the American woods.

But the European settlers, when they came, brought over to Europe many
valuable kinds of fruit and plants, which they did not find here; and I
never was more delighted than once on passing through Virginia, to
observe the dwellings of the settlers shaded by orange, lemon, and
pomegranate trees, that fill the air with the perfume of their flowers,
while their branches are loaded with fruit.

Strawberries of native growth, of the richest flavour, spring up beneath
your feet; and when these are passed away, every grove and field looks
like a cherry orchard. Then follow the peaches, every hedge-row is
planted with them. But it is the flowers and the flowering shrubs, that,
beyond all else, render these regions so beautiful. No description can
give an idea of the variety, the profusion, and the luxuriance of them.

The Dog-wood, whose lateral fan-like branches are dotted all over with
star-like blossoms of splendid white, as large as those of the
gumcistus.

The straight silvery column of the Papan fig, crowned with a canopy of
large indented leaves; and the wild orange tree, mixed with the
odoriferous and common laurel, form striking ornaments of this
enchanting scene, with many other lovely flowers too numerous to
describe.

There is another charm that enchants the wanderer in the American woods.
In a bright day in the summer months you walk through an atmosphere of
butterflies, so gaudy in hue, and so varied in form, that I often
thought they looked like flowers on the wing.

Some of them are large, measuring three or four inches across the wing,
but many, and those of the most beautiful, are small. Some have wings
the most dainty lavender, and bodies of black; others are fawn and rose
colour, and others are orange and bright blue: but pretty as they are,
it is their numbers more than their beauty; and their gay, and
noiseless movement through the air, crossing each other in chequered
maze, that so delights the eye.

[Illustration]

That beautiful production, the humming bird, is also the sportive
inhabitant of these warm climates, and I think they surpass all the
works of nature in singularity of form, splendour of colour, and variety
of species.

They are found in all the West India islands and in most parts of the
American continent: the smalles