I CANNOT help expreffing my regret that Sparmann, who was fo little Preffed for time when he undertook his journey, or Paterfon who feems to have travelled poft, and as a man eager to finish his expedition, had not formed the defign of penetrating into the country of the Kabobiquas, and as far even as the mountains of the Houzouanas.

What treasures would thefe learned botanists have found there! And what riches might they not have brought away with them!

I have myself, indeed, but a few fcore drawings, to prove what fcience might have gained by their means; yet I invite other travellers to undertake what my little knowledge of botany prevented me from performing; and I dare promise them before hand the most splendid fuccefs. But at the fame time I must tell them, that they ought to dedicate feveral years to their refearches, without which it will be impoffible for them to accomplish their purpose to any great extent.

It is not in Africa as in what are called the temperate countries of Europe. In thefe, nature gives the earth to vegetate part of the year only, while, during the other part, it is dead and lifeless. In Africa, on the contrary, there is no interruption.

The foil, warmed by the continual heat, is always fertile; and every month yields its plants, its flowers, and its fruits. Nor is there, as in Eu- rope, a gradual developement and re

gular fucceffion. It is not the feason,

nor is it the greater or lefs propinquity of the equator, that occafions a more or lefs abundant vegetation.— The fun itself, elsewhere confidered as the primary cause of fertility, is here the fecondary only. Its heat, it is true, is affifting to the birth,growth, and ripening of vegetables; but they are the rains more particularly that occafion them to fpring up and unfold themselves, that determine in great measure the place and time of their appearance, and caufe them to fhew themfelves in one place fooner than in another. Now as the rains them, felves are owing to the fituation of the mountains which attract the clouds, it follows, that they may be very une. qually diftributed, and that one spot may be deluged with them, while another properly watered, thall dif, play a vigorous ftate of vegetation, and a third, dry and parched, exhibit only the image of death and defolation.

From this fortuitous occurrence of the rains, fome vegetables have a fort of accidental fucceffion, according to the fpots on which they grow, that naturally they ought not to have.Thus in one place a fpecies of flower has juft blown, which farther on ap peared fix weeks before, and which, ten leagues farther fill, will perhaps not bloffom in lefs than two months. In Africa, nature is always alive, and her action never benumbed by cold; but it is neceffary to be on the watch for her; and the botanist who tra

verfes the country, without refiding in it a confiderable time, must expect only the fortune of the day, and will of courfe bring away with him no other collection than what is afforded him by chance.

At the Cape are daily proofs of what I have faid. That colonies have long ago been vifited by amateurs of flowers and skilful botanists; yet every new comer finds fomething with which to enrich his garden or his herbal. As it happens, perhaps, that no one arrives at the same place, under the fame circumstances, and at the fame period as another, each meets with plants which they who preceded him neither knew nor had the power of knowing. The two naturalifts I mentioned above have enriched science by new discoveries, though they came after fo many others.

Though the majority of thefe fucceffive journeys were made in a fhort fpace of time, they have contributed nevertheless to extend our knowledge, and increase the treasures of natural history. What then would be effected, fhould a man of information repair to fome fertile and more diftant fpot, and remain a whole year, fo as to fee all that nature produces there blow in fucceffion under his eye!

What I have faid concerning plants is with equal truth applicable to birds; for the influence of the rains, which accelerates or retards the unfolding of the former, cannot fail to occafion great difference in the laying, incubation, and moulting of the latter.

That I may render a double fervice to perfons attempting a fimilar enterprize to mine, 1 fhall infert here a remark, which I confider as import ant, and that may fave them from many miflakes; which is, that the variation which is obferved to take place in the fame fpecies of plants, according to the difference of age, of time, and of place, takes place alfo among the feathered tribe,

This accidental and tranfitory diffimilitude is fometimes fo great, that a perfon would fuppofe himself to fee, individuals totally different; and I have known men learned in books and fyftems as much deceived in this refpect as others. One of thefe clofet naturalifts, for inftance, fhewed me four birds as fo many different fpecies, and even as not belonging to the fame genus, with which I was well acquainted, and which I knew to be the fame bird, only of different ages.

In the first place, every male when young has the fame plumage as his mother; and it is only as he grows older that he affumes that of his fex. I will not venture to affirm that this is an univerfal and invariable rule; but I have hitherto met with no exception to it, whereas I have. verified it, by my own obfervation, in more than a thoufand different fpecies.

Many females too, when they grow fo old as to ceafe laying eggs, undergo a fimilar change, and affume the more fplendid colours belonging to the male of the fpecies, which they retain during the remainder of their lives. This fact is firikingly perceptible in thofe fpecies in which the male and female very much differ in their colour; as the golden pheasant of China, for inflance, now fo common in our aviaries, in which the change takes place. I have obferved the fame tranfmutation in many other birds, of which I fhall fpeak elfewhere. In fome fpecies, and those not few in number, the male alone regularly changes his colour, and af fumes once in a twelvemonth the plumage of the female; fo that at a certain period of the year all the birds of this fpecies appear to be females. I have in my poffeffion fpecimens of more than fifty of these changing fpecies, in all their tranfitions from one hue to another; but the one in which it appears most extraor

dinary

dinary is an African bunting, known by the name of veuve à épaulettes rou

ges

The female of this beautiful bird has the fimple colours of the skyPark, and a fhort horizontal tail, like that of almost all other birds: the male, on the contrary, is wholly black, except at the shoulder of the wing; where there is a large red patch; and his tail is long, ample, and vertical, like that of the common cock. But this brilliant plumage and fine vertical tail fubfift only during the feafon of love, which continues fix months. This period over, he lays afide his fplendid habiliments, and asfumes the more modeft dress of his mate. The most extraordinary cir. cumftance is, that the vertical tail alfo changes to a horizontal one, and the male fo exactly resembles the female, that it is not poffible to diftinguish them from each other.

The female has her turn. When The reaches a certain age, and has loft the faculty of propagating the fpecies, the clothes herself for the remainder of her days in the garb which

the male had temporarily affumed; her tail, like his at that period, grows long, and, like his alfo, from horizontal becomes vertical.

The birds of this species affociate together, live in a fort of republic, and build their nefts near to each other. The fociety ufually confifts of about fourfcore females: but whether, by a particular law of nature, more females are produced than males, or for any other reafon of which I am ignorant, there are never more than twelve or fifteen males to this number of females, who have them in common.

All that I have here written I have read in the great book of nature.Such obfervations, perhaps, have no great merit, and I confider them myfelf as of little value: but they are at least accurate; and the critics who have been defirous of giving me their advice have neither found, nor will be able to find, similar ones, either among their inventors of fyftems, or in the books of writers whofe excurfions have never extended beyond the walls of a closet.

CR RAYON Pictures are in their nature more delicate, and confequently more liable to injury, than almost every other kind of painting: they are ufually executed upon a paper ground, pafted over the finest limen, and are often painted upon blue, but most commonly upon paper prepared with a fize ground, rendered of a middle teint for the fake of expedition, and sometimes upon paper

perfectly white. It must not be concluded, that because Crayon pictures are easily injured, they cannot with care be preferved a great length of time; nay, for many centuries; but it will always be neceffary to keep them with attention, and above all things to take care that they are not left in damp rooms, or in moist places, for the pafte which is used in preparing the grounds, will inevit

ably

ably produce a mildew, and blacks, and the darkest colours be covered with spots.

All the light teints of English Crayons are perfectly fafe and durable, and pictures of this description are to be seen that have been painted more than forty years, and which have been exposed to the climates of the Eaft and West Indies; and are, notwithstanding, in no respect decayed. It must always be remembered, that as Crayon pictures are dry, and have of courfe a powdery furface, they never should be left uncovered with a glafs; because whatever duft fettles. upon them cannot be blown off or removed in any other manner. Crayon pictures, when finely painted, are fuperlatively beautiful, and decorative in a very high degree in apartments that are not too large; for, having their furface dry, they partake in appearance of the effect of Frefco, and by candle light are luminous and beautiful beyond all other pictures.

The finest examples that are known in this branch of painting are the pic

tures by the Caval. Mengs in the gallery at Drefden, the Seafons and other beautiful paintings by Rofalba, and certain portraits of Lietard, which are difperfed and to be found all over Europe, as he painted in almost every country; perhaps to these may be added a few of my late mafter's portraits; and finally, if it will not be deemed too much presumption, my father's portrait and Mr Knap-. ton's, her Majefty with the Princess Royal fleeping, Mrs Child, Mifs Jones, Mifs Wilton, and a few other portraits by myself.

Whatever fpots appear in the blacks, and darkeft colours, are easily removed with care by the point of a penknife; and if any fpots fhould arife upon the light parts of the flesh, or other places, they should in like manner be scraped off and repainted in, a fpot at a time, exactly corref ponding with the furrounding teints, till all the decayed parts are restored, which has often been done with admirable effect.

P.

I HAVE been a great traveller fince you wrote to me laft, and like Ulyffes have feen many men and many cities. I have feen moreover what he never faw, a real fimple, unaffected hermit; not fuch as with long beards, and pretended fanctity, make pious means fubfervient to worldly ends; but a poor, plain, honest old man, who has voluntarily quitted the bufy haunts of men, for the love of folitude and of Heaven.

partly built with brick, and partly dug in the ground; a little fmoke gently afcending towards the top of the eminence, ferving to mark it for a human dwelling, from the dreary waste around; about three yards from it, and leaning against the little gate of his little garden, appeared the venerable Sire, who, approaching me with courteous but feeble steps, asked me if I had loft my way, and offered to fet me right. I alighted from my horfe, and attended him to his cottage; close to which on the left a board was fixed with these lines infcribed: I give you them verbatim & literatim.

Ed. Mag. April 1797.

for me;

She

I loved to fee;

of three hours."

I then entered the old man's dwell ing, which was about half the fize of your inner parlour, and in which a little turf on the hearth, a few religious books, and a miferable bed, were the only objects that drew my attention. I next attended him fomewhat lower down the hill, where he fhowed me a cavity neatly bricked by his own hands, and of the dimenfions of a human body: this fays he, is to be my grave, and I have a friend who, if he furvives me, will depofit my remains here. Laft of all, I peeped over a broom hedge into his gar den, where the cabbages and potatoes would have been more plentiful, if the hares and the rabbits had been

lefs fo. I now began to have leifure to contemplate the extraordinary inhabitant of these dreary fcenes, and found him courteous, intelligent, and contented. I have spent twelve years, fays he, in this place; in which nothing has difturbed my religious peace, unless indeed it was the death of that hare, which vifited me conftantly with the utmoft familiarity, and whofe lofs this noify cur by my fide does but ill fupply.I have been afked for my beard; but I feek not fingularity for its own fake, and with to drefs, as far as I can, like other folks of my age and circumftances. I walk three miles to church every Sunday, when I am prevented neither by illness nor weather; in thefe cafes I ferve God at home, and can do it as well: I have been richer than now, but neither happier, not more independent; as I often dine on bread and water sweetened with a little fugar, with perfect fatisfaction.

when I can get it; and fometimes have brought a bottle of it in my hand from the town to my cottage; but there are no means of conveying any quantity hither; and I will not go there to feek it. If I quit this retreat, I must go into a workhouse, which I diflike; here I am quite contented with what you have brought me from your charitable female friend, I have feventeen fhillings, and have no farther anxiety for the winter: once I was here three whole days furrounded with fnow, and unable to ftir five yards from my dwelling; but I had bacon which had been fent me by a friend; I had potatoes, and I had foow water to drink; and I had a mind perfectly at rest. So far for the worthy Hermit, about whom all I have faid is exactly true, only that the real speech was probably not worded in the fame manner, and was interrupted by occafional questions from me.

Further particulars of the faid Hermit. I was on a week's tour, with Mr and Mrs one of her fifters, and a gentleman, when we heard of this curious and venerable character. It is near Wolfely bridge, in Staffordfhire, and about fourteen miles from Mr

that the foreft is fituated; and though my curiofity was much raised by the name of a Hermit, I do not think I fhould have gone out of my way for farther information about him, had I not been ftimulated to it by one of my fair companions, Mils

who being informed by the Landlord that the parish had withdrawn their weekly allowance to him, in confequence of having builded an ample poor houfe, to which he was at liberty to betake himself; and that therefore, his main dependence being removed, his fituation must become moreprecarious, perfuaded me to rife half an hour before the rest of the party, to carry him a present from

her;