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such and such a plant must be a Water Crowfoot because it was found growing in water, and parviflorum because the flowers were small? Yet many a plant has been added to a neat little private herbarium, and many an insect transferred to a place in the drawer, upon evidence as circumstantial; the owner meanwhile flattering himself that he was really getting "a nice collection," and debating whether he ought not to be more widely acknowledged as a man of science. One collects plants, another butterflies, another postage-stamps, or another autographs, or old china, and we once knew an eccentric old bachelor who had a "fancy" for collecting old pipes. If making the collection is all the aim, then each of these worthies is as worthy as the other, and all are no better for their "hobby," except that the mind and body have been kept in exercise, and more objectionable employment of spare hours prevented.

The fancy for collecting rare plants, or rare insects, is with some enthusiasts such an infatuation that they will undergo in its behalf all kinds of privation and toil, now rushing in one direction, and now in another, as if they thought that their credit here, and their salvation hereafter, depended upon the number of rare plants or animals they had aided in exterminating. It is not the rare but the common species which give character to a flora or fauna, and the time spent in hunting after, or travelling for miles in pursuit of some rarity, would be better employed in cultivating a closer acquaintance with such common things as "buttercups and daisies," or ladybirds and "cabbage-whites."

How often have we plucked a daisy and placed it in the hands of such an one, asking if they could find a rarer gem, and seen it cast to the ground in disgust, as a thing too common to be worthy of a thought. May we not believe that because it is so common they know less about it? Everybody knows a daisy, and yet how few have ever compared a daisy with its description, examined or dissected it, or spent an hour in reading the lessons it has to impart. Will no one offer in the schools of science prizes for the study of "common things"? And yet there is such a prize, in the esteem and respect which all true naturalists entertain for him who toils day after day and year after year to present at last the life-history of a honey-bee, an earthworm, or such another "common thing."

Finally, young friend, and despiser of "common things," beware lest thy naughty heart should beguile thee to think that because thou canst vocalize glibly such compounds as Glyphipteryx Schœnicolella by the hour, that thou art the equal of the patient worker, who, concentrating his powers, has exhausted (if possible) a house-fly or a primrose, and can find in these no more that is left for him to learn.

Humming-birds and the wild-tangled of tropical vegetation, appear to be so closely linked together, that we are apt to think the one essential to the existence of the other.

We naturally (at least I always did in my earlier days) associate these tiniest gems of the feathered creation, with glowing sunshine, gorgeous flowers, grotesque orchids, palms, plantains, bananas, and blacks. This is all true enough, and if we take that large slice of the American continent betwixt the Amazon, the Rio Grande, and the Gila (embracing Guiana, New Granada, Central America, Mexico, and the West-India islands), as the home of humming-birds, we shall pretty truthfully define, what is usually assumed to be, the geographical range of this group—a group entirely confined to America.

Within the above limits, the greater variety of species, the most singular in form and brilliant in plumage, are met with.

Gazing on these gems of the air, one would suppose that Nature had exhausted all her skill, in lavishly distributing the richest profusion of colours, and in exquisitely mingling every imaginable tint and shade, to adorn these diminutive creatures, in a livery more lustrously brilliant, than was ever fabricated by the loom, or metal-worker's handicraft.

But away from the tropics and its feathered wonders, to the wild solitudes of the Rocky Mountains,—it is there I want you (in imagination) to wander will me, and to picture to yourself—you can easily do it, if you possess a naturalist's love of discovery—the delight I experienced when, for the first time, I saw humming-birds up in the very regions of the "ice-king." A brief narrative will best convey the information—the "Science Gossip"—I am desirous to impart.

Early in the month of May, when the sun melts down the doors of snow and ice, and sets free imprisoned nature, I was sent ahead of the astronomical party, employed in marking the boundary-line dividing the British possessions from those of the United States, to cut out a trail, and bridge any streams too deep to ford. The first impediment met with was at the Little Spokan river,—little only as compared with the Great Spokan, into which it flows. The larger stream leads from the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, and flows on to join the Columbia.

It was far too deep to be crossed by any expedient short of bridging; so a bridge had to be built, an operation involving quite a wreck's delay. The place chosen, and the men set to work, my leisure time was devoted to collecting.

The snow still lingered in large patches about the hollows and sheltered spots. Save a modest violet