296 PLANTS AND INSECTS. 



green beetle* not uncommonly found near willow- trees, around 

 which it perfumes the air. Per contra and opposed to all 

 " the sweets of Arabia " there are the cockroach the church- 

 yard beetle the foetid centipede, and other lurkers in damp 

 dark places, both above ground and below, which resemble in 

 ill odour, as they do in gloomy localities, the hellebores, the 

 hemlocks, and the mandrakes of the vegetable world. And 

 as a few among the flowers of the sun are not a whit behind 

 their darker fellows in this one repulsive quality, so among 

 insects, to say nothing of the pretty lady -bird, there is the green, 

 golden-eyed, lace- winged fly,f that exhales an odour which, 

 even pour V amour de ses beaux yeux, and for the elegance of its 

 form, one can scarcely pardon, any more than for its splendour, 

 one can cordially admire that pride of the hot house, the most 

 beautiful but most foetid of the Stapelias, named, by the Dutch 

 inhabitants of the Cape, the Arabische Rose. 



The power of emitting light is another property, common, in 

 some peculiar instances, both to plants and insects, the fire- 

 fly the glow-worm and the electric centipede, each having 

 its vegetable representative in the luminous Jfyaxinella, the 

 Euphorbia phosphorea, and various plants and fungi in a state 

 of decay. 



For almost every vegetable production there is an analogous 

 insect secretion. To say nothing of honey and bees' wax, 

 which may be viewed rather as vegetable products animalized, 



* Cerambyx moscliatus (musk beetle.) f Chrysopa perla. 



