59 



ting. Afterwards they are beaten or else crushed between 

 rollers, in order to separate the various fibres from each other. 

 They are next dried and drawn through a machine like a large 

 clothes brush, made of wire this process draws all the fibres 

 the same way, and makes them straight and even. After this 

 is done nothing remains but to bleach them, and they are fit for 

 the spinner. The flax that is used- for the more delicate arti- 

 cles, such as fine lawn, is prepared with much greater care and 

 trouble. 



Mrs. Howitt, in a beautiful little book, called " Birds and 

 Flowers," speaks thus truly of the Flax : 



" Oh, the little Flax-flower, 



It groweth on the hill, 

 And be the breeze awake or asleep, 



It never standeth still. 

 " It groweth and it groweth fast, 



One day it is a seed, 

 And then a little grassy blade, 



Scarce bigger than a weed. 

 " But then comes out the Flax-flower, 



As blue as is the sky, 

 And 'tis a dainty little thing, 



We say as we pass by. 

 " Oh, 'tis a goodly little thing, 



It groweth for the poor, 

 And many a peasant blesses it, 

 Beside liis cottage door." 



WHITE FLAX. Linum catharticum. 



Plate 4, fig. 6. 

 Leaves opposite, oblong. Flowers white. 



A little delicate plant, that is abundant on most dry hill-sides, 

 bearing small white flowers, which, when young, are elegantly 

 drooping ; one stem only comes from the ground, but at a little 

 more than half way up it divides into two branches, and each 

 of these a little higher into two others, and so on. It is vio- 

 lently poisonous blossoms in July, and grows from four to 

 six inches high. 



SUN-DEW. DROSERA. 



ROUND-LEAVED SUN-DEW. Drosera rotundifolia. 

 Plate 4, jig. 7. 



" On the pools half dry banks, there's the red and green hue 

 Of that small moorland darling, the little Sundew; 

 Each plant lying close, like a broidered rosette, 

 Shining redly with ruby gems, thick o'er it SQtS'Twamley, 



