which, in the depths of the dark herbage, glowed like a living coal. How eloquently did this little flower bespeak the being and attributes of its Maker. Ah! "There is religion in a flower; Mountains and oceans, planets, suns, and systems, Bear not the impress of Almighty power In characters more legible than those Which he has written on the tiniest flower Whose light bell bends beneath the dewdrop's weight." One who has never looked upon the Western prairie in the pride of its blushing bloom can hardly conceive the surpassing loveliness of its summer flora; and, if the idea is not easy to conceive, still less is it so to convey. The autumn flowers in their richness I have not yet beheld; and in the early days of June, when I first stood upon the prairies, the beauteous sisterhood of spring were all in their graves; and the sweet springtime of the year it is when the gentle race of flowers dance over the teeming earth in gayest guise and profusion. In the first soft days of April, when the tender green of vegetation begins to overspread the soil scathed by the fires of autumn, the _viola_, primrose of the prairie, in all its rare and delicate forms; the _anemone_ or wind-flower; the blue dewy harebell; the pale oxlip; the flowering _arbute_, and all the pretty family of the pinks and lilies lie sprinkled, as by the enchantment of a summer shower, or by the tripping footsteps of Titania with her fairies, over the landscape. The blue and the white then tint the perspective, from the most {29} limpid cerulean of an _iris_ to the deep purple of the pink; from the pearly lustre of the cowslip to the golden richness of the buttercup. In early springtime, too, the island groves of the prairies are also in flower; and the brilliant crimson of the _cercis canadensis_, or Judas-tree; the delightful fragrance of the _lonicera_ or honeysuckle, and the light yellow of the _jasimum_, render the forests as pleasant to the smell as to the eye. But spring-time passes away, and with her pass away the fair young flowers her soft breath had warmed into being. Summer comes over the prairies like a giant; the fiery dog-star rages, and forth leap a host of bright ones to greet his coming. The _heliotrope_ and _helianthus_, in all their rich variety; the wild rose, flinging itself around the shrub-oak like a wreath of rainbows; the _orchis_, the balmy thyme, the burgamot, and the asters of every tint and proportion, then prevail, throwing forth their gaudy, sunburnt petals upon the wind, until the whole meadow seems arrayed in the royal livery of a sunset sky. Scarcely does the summer begin to decline, and autumn's golden sunlight to stream in misty magnificence athwart the landscape, than a thousand gorgeous plants of its own mellow hue are nodding in stately beauty over the plain. Yellow is the garniture of the autumnal Flora of the prairies; and the haughty golden-rod, and all the splendid forms of the