We are drawing towards the close of autumn; we shall soon be in sight of the "melancholy days of the year;" when, for a while, the "voice of the turtle" will cease in the leafless groves, and the banks and braes will be sadly bare of their floral garniture. As yet, however, the trees retain their glorious vesture, though streaked and varied with the gorgeous colours of decay; and in the sheltered corners of the woods, on the sunny southern slope of the grassy hill, and beneath the covert of the still fragrant hedgerow, many a blossom appeals to our souls with its promptings of sweet images and tender fancies. The arum still raises its clusters of deep-scarlet berries, and spreads its spotted leaf-- "Armed with keen tortures for the unwary tongue;" the blue-bells hang their delicate cups among the thick herbage; and the wild marigold contrasts its yellow splendour with all this crimson and azure magnificence. The daisy, too, has not forsaken us--sweet shield of silver, embossed with gold!--but brightens still the pleasant meadow and the sloping bank. [Illustration: FIG. 78.--"As yet, the trees retain their glorious vesture."] "The rose has but a summer reign, The daisy never dies;" and though it first makes its appearance in the merry spring-time, and is truly a child of the early year, it lingers on to become a precious ornament of our scanty autumn wreaths. Sweet flower of song!--dearer to the poet than even lily or violet!--who does not remember, and remembering feel, all the pathos of the dying exclamation of poor Keats,--"I feel the daisies already growing over me!" They heighten the commonest and cheer the saddest corners of the earth, and are ever ready, in their simple loveliness, to awaken thoughts of grateful tenderness and love-- "So glad am I when in the daisy's presence, That I am fain to do it reverence." To what do the leaves, now changing their hues so rapidly, and varying through all the tints of purple, brown, and yellow,--to what do they owe their normal colour, the fresh, vivid, beautiful green? To a substance called _chlorophyll_--(χλωρὸς, green, and φυλλον, a leaf). Well, what _is_ chlorophyll? The colouring matter of plants, which, accompanied by grains of starch, floats like very minute seeds in the fluid of their cells. In some respects it is analogous to wax; it will not dissolve in water, but is easily affected by ether or alcohol.