SNAP-DRAGON. 177 



The Snap-Dragon belongs to the family of the 

 Toad-Flax, and it is a flower which we cannot 

 examine without admiring how wonderfully it is 

 adapted for the bleak situations in which it grows 

 naturally, as on the highest rocks, or out of the 

 crevices of the most exposed cliffs, or the chinks 

 of the loftiest towers, in all of these situations 

 its parts of fructification are guarded against the 

 tempest by the singularly-shaped corolla, which 

 defies either wir^l or rain to enter the flower until 

 impregnation has taken place, when the mask 

 falls off to allow a free access of air to the seed 

 vessel. We have frequently remarked that the 

 bees, and more particularly the humble-bees, 

 have entered this flower by pressing open the 

 lips, as if they were conscious that such an open- 

 ing existed, although it shuts so close as to de- 

 ceive the nicest eye, and snaps too the moment 

 the insect has gained admittance, leaving it to 

 revel unobserved within the mask, from which it 

 makes its exit with the same ease as it entered. 

 This species of instinct approaches near to rea- 

 son, since the bee cannot have been trained or 

 instructed to this habit. 



Linnaeus placed this plant in the fourteenth 

 class of his sexual system, which he named Didy- 

 namia, from the Greek o]g, twice, and o'lvaulc 



Vol. II. N 



