Giant Ivy. 293 



in great profusion. If dug up for curiosity the root 

 has a strong odor, like the cultivated vegetable, but 

 is small and woody. Eveiyone who has gathered 

 the beautiful scarlet poppies must have noticed the 

 perfect Maltese cross formed inside the broad petals 

 by the black markings. 



Beetles fly in the evening with such carelessness 

 as to strike against people they come against the 

 face with quite a smart blow. Miserable beetles may 

 sometimes be seen eaten almost hollow within by in- 

 numerable parasites. The laborers call those hairy 

 caterpillars which curl in a circle ' Devil's rings ' a 

 remnant of the old superstition that attributed every 

 thing that looked strange to demoniacal agencj r . 



There is a tendency to variation even in the com- 

 mon buttercup. Not long since I saw one with a 

 double flower ; the petals of each were complete and 

 distinct, the two flowers being set back to back on the 

 top of the stalk. The stem of one of the bryonies 

 withers up so completely that the shrinkage, aided by 

 a little wind, snaps it. Then a bunch of red berries 

 may be seen hanging from the lower boughs of a tree 



a part of the stem, twined round, remaining there. 



the berries look as if belonging to the tree itself, 

 the other part of the stem having fallen to the 

 ground. 



In clay soils the ivy does not attain any large size ; 

 but where there is some admixture of loam, or sand, 

 it flourishes ; I have seen ivy whose main stem 

 growing up the side of an oak was five inches in dia- 

 meter, and had some pretensions to be called timber. 

 The bulrush, which is usually associated with water, 

 does not grow in a great many brooks and ponds ; in 



