and naked surfaces can he not spread out the richest carpet of flowers, and the richest canopies of fruits? Let not, then, the works of nature be overrated, or at least too narrowly interpreted; and let not those of men be despised, nor too hastily distinguished from those of nature, seeing that they are the works of men, themselves the works of nature!

"In the example, then, of a new country, how much is there not to be expected for the future, from the works of men, whether as to their plants, their animals, their general productions, or as to the appearance of their surface only! Those solitary and silent flats, shall they one day not be lowing with cattle, bleating with sheep, shining with corn-fields, blushing with orchards; smiling with cottages and villages, warm with the smoke of chimneys, and gay with the domes of cities; shall not canals water the dry places, and drains redeem the marshes?

"Nor is this all. It is not only what is direct from the labours of man, but what is indirect as well; what follows without design, and often without expectation. Culture changes the soils of countries; and commerce and cultivation together, change, in the most remarkable manner, the productions of soils, as well spontaneous as laboured. The introduction of new plants and of new animals effects extraordinary and collateral changes even in the wild zoology and botany of countries. A foreign species of rat, which could have arrived only on shipboard, is said to have found its way into England; to have spread itself over the country; and to have exterminated the native species. The English house-fly, now abundant in North America, is said to have been carried there in English ships. Seeds of foreign weeds, and grubs and

eggs of foreign insects and reptiles, travel with the seeds and roots of foreign grain, and roots, and flowers. The English weed, St. John's-wort, at first hailed in English America as a rarity,-as a relic from home,— has multiplied itself into a weed of America, as common as it is troublesome. But without foreign species, the changes of the condition of the earth's surface, from wet to dry, from dry to wet, from covered to open, from open to covered, or from ploughed to unploughed, destroy, produce, and change the forms, the colours, and the habits of native, and even local species, plants and animals; for, as to the effect, in our common agriculture, for example, of the manure of lime-dressings upon a cold, wet surface, it is not merely to weaken or strengthen the growth of the plants previously indigenous; but to change the species, killing some of the old ones, and producing new ones; and what is more marvellous, as well as sure, that, except within a certain distance of the sea, a dressing of gypsum, or plaster of Paris, will bring a spontaneous growth of white clover, where white clover was never seen before! Or, reverting again, to foreign introductions; a single species, animal or vegetable, may effect, in the consequences of its appearance, a series of even considerable changes in the native species of organized matter, the most remote in nature from itself. In South America, where, as you all know (and as in America in general), the horse was unknown, till carried thither by Europeans; it has been remarked, that the large herds in which they now feed wild over the country, have already altered very considerably its natural features! The ancient bulbous-rooted and indigenous plants, and numerous species of aloes, with which the plains (or pampas) were formerly overspread, have perished under

the trampling of their hoofs, and are wholly disappeared; while, in the place of these, the ground has become covered with a fine grass, mixed with a species of creeping thistle, hardy enough to endure what has destroyed its vegetable predecessors! But the vegetable economy of South America being thus altered, that of the insect world, subsisting upon the vegetable, was to be expected to alter too; an event which has actually happened: while, along with the changes in the insects and the plants, and the direct presence of the horses, the very birds, and the beasts of prey, have acquired new habits! There is no saying, therefore, what changes may hereafter make their appearance in such a country as New Holland, effected, directly or indirectly, by the hand of man; changes in its soils, its temperatures, its seasons, and its plants and animals; and consequent, one way and the other, upon human culture, commerce, arts, and civilization. Already the wild cangaroo of the Southern Hemisphere, is seen hopping and grazing in the same pastures with the horse, and ox, and sheep, of the Northern side of the equator, carried thither by the hand of man; and the various effects of whose presence upon the Southern soil, as to its composition, its pressure under their feet, its dressing from their manure, its growth from their bite, or its gain in plants, insects, reptiles, birds, quadrupeds, and even, perhaps, in fishes, remains to be discovered through the succession of ages! As to singing-birds, in the meantime, and as to small birds in general, or at least as to many of their species, it is a circumstance worthy of remark, that in every country, even where they are native, their multiplication and frequent appearance is often accompaniment of man, and of man in a civilized state; or, in other words,

that their frequency and multiplication, often require, for their production, the presence and the civilization of mankind*; truths of a nature not to be disputed as to numerous quadrupeds as well; as horses, oxen, sheep, dogs, cats; and the broods, as wild or as unprotected as those of birds,—namely, rats and mice. In a certain sense, therefore, these creatures are parasitical animals; they are the companions of man, and his dependents for food and life. The small birds, that feed upon grain and seeds, are but little seen at considerable distances from our farmsteads and our houses; so, that I have ground for every hope for New Holland, even to its population with singing-birds; and not the least of my anticipations in its regard, is its future covering with a civilization wholly English, at least as far as the differences of situation and circumstances can be expected to breed up a people really similar. Its name of New Holland, in the meantime, is without appropriate meaning; and I could wish to see it denominated, by English authority, South Britain!

"The absence of singing-birds, in pathless forests, and uncultivated countries, has been remarked, not in New Holland alone, but in America and elsewhere. In almost all regions, the solitary forests and plains are silent, and only the gardens, and the fields, and farm

* It is often a matter for reflection, and a visible sign of man's dominion upon the earth, to see the conspicuousness of the works of man in the general landscape, and the importance of their bearing, even in the midst of the proudest works of nature. Anacreon justly insists upon the works of men, as features of a beautiful prospect; and Shakspeare, even in supposing the destruction of the " great globe," remembers, not alone, nor even first, the seas and mountains, but

"The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples!"

yards, musical and loquacious: 'Every leaf was at rest,' says the poet, travelling in North America,

Save the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.'

And to the same general cause to which we are here referring, may be ascribed, perhaps, much of that deficiency of song-birds which is usually reported of tropical (that is, to Europeans, new and uncultivated) countries. Goldsmith gives to the Torrid Zone,

"Those matted woods, where birds forget to sing."

That, in New Holland, there may, at the same time, be few or no native species of singing-bird, is a real probability, considering the entire singularity of all its zoological characteristics.

"But this,” added Mr. Paulett, "is the human history in our debate; and that part of our survey of nature which is connected with civilization in general, and with the relative conditions of the different countries of the globe, out of which, at another time, we may draw our second lesson. At present," concluded he, "let us only make it our remark, that since man is obviously destined, not to live in the single society of his own species, but in the midst of a group also of various animals, and these animals to live with man ; it follows that both have been destined likewise, to live together harmoniously, kindly, and with love. Domestic strife, or coldness, or inhospitality, can be no part of the law of nature; and I even think it obvious, that there exists the very opposite law, a law as certain in natural morals, as the law of attraction in physics, which makes all these living things take pleasure in each other's society; makes them sympathise with each other; draws them toge