HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



197 



Pause a moment now in this narrow lane and 

 observe this pale small tortoise-shell butterfly, whose 

 two wing-spots are barely perceptible, for it drinks 

 deep on the purple thistle. Here though comes the 

 herd-girl driving a couple of bulls with the most 

 fearful horns, short, polished, and as sharp as 

 needles. Now they are past, and we breathe as a 

 childish voice exclaims, "They are not naughty," 

 but from such terrible kine may the Lord deliver us. 

 A rustic bridge conducts us onward to a grove of 

 maritime pines, in whose cool shadow there is a sound 

 of humming, we look up but no resin-bespattered 

 insects swarm around their plumy tops. Is it the 

 carol of a wood-nymph or the reolian breathing of 

 the summer? for nothing is here vocal save the 

 long-horned beetles that repose on the bark in the 

 foppery of slothfulness. Stay a moment, for from 

 beneath this glow of bloom whence a canary- 

 breasted bird has this moment flown, there crawls a 



leaping a hedge and ditch alight like the gods of old, 

 directly opposite a tavern where a mistletoe bough is 

 hung out. The hostess greets us but strangely, 

 You are not of this country ; and as we sip the 

 cognac and revivifying water a revery arises. 



The traveller who crosses Brittany from north to 

 south, passes by a bloom of orchards diversified with 

 swamps and river-courses where the emerald shade of 

 the oak finds a foil in graceful groups and lines of the 

 white poplar ; the ear instinctively catches the sound 

 of "guy" entering into the names of certain of the 

 villages, and he commences to notice that these pearl- 

 bearing bunches that spring luxuriantly on the gnarly 

 apples and smooth poplars are rarely noticed bearding 

 the oaks, walnuts, or ashes ; not indeed because the 

 birds fail to place their germs there, but because 

 they do not strike root. Now the Romans must 

 surely have seen these tresses of the wood-nymphs 

 hanging, as we do now, but it would seem probable 



Fig. 175. — X, route to the principal monuments at Carnac ; vr, road from Vannes ; G, Gavrinis ; L, Locmariaquer ; ra, river of 

 Auray ; RC, river of Crach ; K, stones of Kermario ; M, stones of Menac ; AV, road to Auray ; s, Mont-Saint-Michel; 

 H, Miln's Museum ; c, village of Carnac ; p, village of Plouharnel ; t, tavern ; vr, railway to Auray and Vannes. 



little dapper longicorn, whose antennae are short and 

 bead-like. All such have superior wits, and see how 

 in response to the insulting straw of purple toad-flax, 

 he opens wide his jaws and sounds his musical-box 

 with a nid-nod of the head, just to tell us he is the 

 chocolate-coloured Glycerhiza ^-litieatum. 



But farewell to the restoring shadows, for we are 

 now on the glaring high road, only differing from 

 those on the banks of the Loire in being less sugary 

 and more mustard coloured ; could we dance in ring 

 to the sound of the poet's flute and tread it with the 

 bagpipes going on before, we might require our 

 seven-leagued boots, for we have far to journey. At 

 length a considerate haymaker suggests a short cut 

 across the meadows, and propounds a problem as to 

 how we must make for a larger village and keep a 

 smaller one on the left, but dazed with the silken 

 sheen of poppies and cockles alternating with blue- 

 bottles and marigolds, we miss the stone steps and 



that arriving in the frosty season, when the white- 

 robed Druid, mounted on the naked boughs with his 

 golden sickle, that they mistook the poplar groves 

 self-planted beside the pools of Chartres, or on the 

 green sod of Anglesea for the tall and lank oaks of 

 Italy. 



But we must now really leave this elegant reposi- 

 tory of cyder, cognac, beer and drinks innumerable, 

 so much in advance of our drowsy public-houses, and 

 so we anxiously inquire the way to the Gavrinis. 

 The hostess, however, talks but little French, and she 

 directs us to the next village, where we inquire again 

 and are conducted to the baker. He has indeed 

 heard of the Gaberine, but it is not near, and thus 

 cheered we walk on so far that we do not know 

 where we have got to ; however, the spire of the 

 village of Baden looms bluely in the distance, and 

 here we at length arrive weary and a-hungered, and 

 on entering a tavern a dish of the Vaxus cardilia (?) 



