STUDY X. 41 



colours, dark greens, with white and black fpots, 

 virulent fmells....But when (he means to characte- 

 rize a whole diftrid that is unwholcfome, die col- 

 lects a multitude of fimilar duTonances. The air 

 is loaded with thick fogs, the turbid waters ex- 

 hale only naufeous fmells, no vegetable thrives on 

 the putrid foil but fuch as are difgufting, the dra- 

 cunculus, for inftance, the flower of which exhi- 

 bits the form, the colour, and the fmell of an ulcer. 

 If any tree arifes in the cloudy atmofphere, it is 

 the yew only, whofe red and fmoky trunk has the 

 appearance of having pafled through the fire, and 

 whofe gloomy foliage ferves as an afylum only to 

 owls. If any other animal is to be found feeking 

 a retreat under it's lurid (hade, it is the blood- co- 

 loured centipede, or the toad crawling along the 

 humid and rotten ground. By thefe, or fimilar figns, 

 Nature fcares Man away from noxious filiations. 



If (he intends to give him, at fea, the fignal of 

 an impending tempeft; as fhe has oppofed, in fe- 

 rocious animals, the fiery glare of the eyes to the 

 thicknefs of the eye-brows ; the flripes and fpots 

 with which they are marked to the yellow colour 

 of their fkin, and the flillnefs of their move- 

 ments to the thundering noife of their voices; 

 fhe collects, in like manner, in the iky, and on the 

 deep, a multitude of clafliing oppofitions, which, 

 in concert, announce approaching devaftation. 



Dark 



R 



