This He Positively Refused To Do; And When We Remonstrated With Him On The Apparent Imbecility Of This Resolution, He Declared That He Would Not Risk His Life, In Crossing The Atlantic Twice For Twenty Times That Sum.

What strange inconsistency was this, in a being who had three times attempted to take away that which he dreaded so much to lose accidentally!

I was much amused with an account which he gave me, in his quaint way, of an excursion he went upon with a botanist, to collect specimens of the plants and flowers of Upper Canada.

"It was a fine spring day, some ten years ago, and I was yoking my oxen to drag in some oats I had just sown, when a little, fat, punchy man, with a broad, red, good-natured face, and carrying a small black leathern wallet across his shoulder, called to me over the fence, and asked me if my name was Brian B - -? I said, 'Yes; what of that?'

"'Only you are the man I want to see. They tell me that you are better acquainted with the woods than any person in these parts; and I will pay you anything in reason if you will be my guide for a few days.'

"'Where do you want to go?' said I.

"'Nowhere in particular,' says he. 'I want to go here and there, in all directions, to collect plants and flowers.'

"That is still-hunting with a vengeance, thought I. 'To-day I must drag in my oats.

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