106 PROSERPINA. 



spider, when there are meshes to be disentangled that 

 have entrapped his mind. I take my lens, therefore to 

 the little wonder of a brown wasps' nest with blue-winged 

 wasps in it, and perceive therewith the following par- 

 ticulars. 



9. First, that the blue of the petals is indeed pure and 

 lovely, and a little crystalline in texture ; but that the 

 form and setting of them is grotesque beyond all won- 

 der; the two uppermost joined being like an old fash- 

 ioned and enormous hood or bonnet, and the lower one 

 projecting far out in the shape of a cup or cauldron, 

 torn deep at the edges into a kind of fringe. 



Looking more closely still, I perceive there is a cluster 

 of stiff white hairs, almost bristles, on the top of the 

 hood ; for no imaginable purpose of use or decoration 

 any more than a hearth-brush put for a helmet-crest, 

 and that, as we put the flower full in front, the lower 

 petal begins to look like some threatening viperine or 

 shark-like jaw, edged with ghastly teeth, and yet more, 

 that the hollow within begins to suggest a resemblance 

 to an open throat in which there are two projections 

 where the lower petal joins the lateral ones, almost ex- 

 actly like swollen glands. 



I believe it was this resemblance, inevitable to any 

 careful and close observer, which first suggested the use 

 of the plant in throat diseases to physicians ; guided, as 

 in those first days of pharmacy, chiefly by imagination. 

 Then the German name for one of the most fatal of 



