of a
        warrior was found incased in its trunk, and grasping with its
        bony fingers a long and ponderous sword.  It was blown down one
        stormy night, and the wood has been manufactured into a variety
        of articles.

* * * * *

THE SELECTOR, AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

* * * * *

NEW SOUTH WALES.

The following observations, recorded in Mr. Cunningham’s Two Years in New South Wales, are as valuable as they are interesting; for hitherto we have known but little of the natural history of that country:—­

Trees.—­Trees here appear to follow the same laws as other vegetable substances, regarding the effects they produce upon the soil wherein they grow.  It has long been remarked in America, that on the forests being cut down, young trees of a different species sprout up in place of the old ones; and here the same remark, in a great measure, holds good,—­acacias very commonly making their appearance on land that has been once under cultivation, and afterwards permitted to relapse into a state of nature.  From this circumstance it should seem, that trees, like other vegetables, extract a particular substance from the ground, which substance it is necessary should be restored before the same species of tree can be readily grown a second time,—­a restoration to be effected, perhaps, by such chemical changes in the constituent particles of the soil as may arise from the cultivation of other species.

Fruits.—­Of native fruits, we possess raspberries equal in flavour and not otherwise distinguishable from the English.  They grow plentifully on the alluvial banks of Hunter’s river, and supply a yearly Christmas feast to the birds.  Oar native currants are strongly acidulous, like the cranberry, and make an excellent preserve when mixed with the raspberry.  They grow on low shrubs not higher than the whortleberry bush.  Our cherries are destitute both of pleasant taste and flavour, and have the stone adhering to their outside.  Our native pears are tolerably tempting to the look, but defy both mastication and digestion, being the pendulous seed-pods of a tree here, and their outer husks of such a hard woody consistence, as to put the edge of even a well-tempered knife to proof of its qualities in slicing them down.  The burwan is a nut much relished by our natives, who prepare it by roasting and immersion in a running stream, to free it from its poisonous qualities.  The jibbong is another tasteless fruit, as well as the five-corners, much relished by children.  The wild potato strongly resembles the species now in use in Europe, but the stem and leaf are essentially different.  It grows on the loose flooded alluvial margins of the rivers, and at one period of the year composes the chief sustenance of the natives, having the watery look and taste of