80 PECULIARITIES OF THE SNAPDRAGON. 



the quantity of gamboge, must be laid upon the 

 pallet, or in the saucer, and with a drop or two of 

 water, only enough to make it work easily, be 

 most thoroughly united and incorporated by the 

 finger, with the sun shining upon the mixture, 

 adding more gamboge repeatedly during the opera- 

 tion, until the blue is subdued and a clear green 

 produced; but if a tedious operation, yet perse- 

 verance will ultimately produce a very brilliant 

 permanent green. 



We have our walls in many places here decorated 

 with most of the varieties of the great snapdragon 

 (antirrhinum majus) ; the white, the pink, and the 

 common : and that beautiful deviation, with a white 

 tube and crimson termination, is slowly wandering 

 from the garden, and mixing with its congeners. 

 It has not, perhaps, been generally observed, that 

 the flowers of this plant, " bull-dogs," as the boys 

 call them, are perfect insect traps ; multitudes of 

 small creatures seek an entrance into the corolla 

 through the closed lips, which upon a slight pres- 

 sure yield a passage, attracted by the sweet liquor 

 that is found at the base of the gerrnen ; but when 

 so admitted, there is no return, the lips are closed, 

 and all advance to them is impeded by a dense 

 thicket of woolly matter, which invests the mouth 

 of the lower jaw 



" Smooth lies the road to Pluto's gloomy shade ; 

 But 'tis a long, unconquerable pain, 

 To climb to these setherial realms again." 



