“The common dock is ... widely disseminated, [in New Zealand][211] and will, I fear, forever remain a proof of the rascality of an Englishman, who sold the seeds for those of the tobacco plant.” The New-Hollanders a little higher in the scale of civilization than the Fuegians. Puzzled by a “well rounded fragment of greenstone, rather larger than a man’s head,” which a captain had found on a small coral circle or atoll near Keeling Island, “where every other particle of matter is calcareous,” about six hundred miles from Sumatra. D. agrees with Kotzebue (_vide_ Kotzebue) who states that (Darwin’s words) “the inhabitants of the Radack Archipelago, a group of lagoon-islands in the midst of the Pacific, obtained stones for sharpening their instruments by searching the roots of trees which are cast upon the beach,” and “laws have been established that such stones belong to the chief, and a punishment is inflicted on any one who attempts to steal them.” Let geologists look out. “Some natives carried by Kotzebue to Kamtschatka collected stones to take back to their country.” Found no bottom at 7200 feet, and 2200 yards from shore of Keeling Island, a coral isle. His theory of the formation of coral isles by the subsidence of the land appears probable. He concludes that “the great continents are, for the most part, rising areas; and ... the central parts of the great oceans are sinking areas.” Not a _private_ person on the island of Ascension; the inhabitants are paid and victualled by the British government. Springs, cisterns, etc., are managed by the same. “Indeed, the whole island may be compared to a huge ship kept in first-rate order.” _Vide_ “Circumnavigation of Globe up to Cook.” _Vide_ “Voyages Round the World since Cook.” * * * * * The author of the article on Orchids in the _Eclectic_ says that “a single plant produced three different flowers of genera previously supposed to be quite distinct.” Saw the first wild rose to-day on the west side of the railroad causeway. The whiteweed has suddenly appeared, and the clover gives whole fields a rich and florid appearance,—the rich red and the sweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red species as the western sky at evening. The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven. And the yarrow, with its persistent dry stalks and heads, is now ready to blossom again. The dry stems and heads of last year’s tansy stand high above the new green leaves. I sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood thrush at noon. The ground smells of dry leaves; the heat is oppressive. The bird begins on a low strain, _i. e._ it first delivers a strain on a lower key, then a moment after another a little higher, then another still varied from the others,—no two successive strains alike, but either ascending or descending. He confines himself to his few notes, in which he is unrivalled, as if his kind had learned this and no more anciently.