THE ANT-LION. 169 



it is in the same manner that vipers bite, although peasants 

 persist in saying that they sting. 



There are many persons who eat young nettles cooked 

 like spinach, as we are taught by a verse of Horace, and 

 another of Persius. It was well worth the trouble to become 

 masters of the world! 



One of the inhabitants of the nettle is a thorny caterpillar, 

 of a velvety black, marked with three white points. When 

 its time is arrived, it hangs itself by the feet to the leaf of 

 a nettle. At a later period it becomes a magnificent butterfly, 

 black and red-brown, with an eye upon each wing; in which 

 blue, violet, red, white and yellow, emulate the splendour of 

 the eyes in the feathers of the tail of a peacock; whence this 

 butterfly is called the peacock huUerfly. 



The atalanta, with which we have already met as a cater- 

 pillar, lived upon the nettle. The butterfly called the tor- 

 toiseshell has been previously a green and brown striped 

 caterpillar upon the nettle, and then a striped chrysalis. 

 The painted-lady is also a guest of the nettle. 



There is a time at which the old wall changes its appear- 

 ance. Then it is green and rose-coloured. Bengal rose-trees 

 hang like a tapestry over it up to the very top, so as to con- 

 ceal it entirely. The roses are as numerous as the leaves; 

 that palisade of ten paces in length does not exhibit less 

 than from a thousand to twelve hundred roses in bloom at 

 once. A painter would not dare to put so many on his rose 

 trees; the arts stand in need of an appearance of truth — 

 truth easily does without it. Here is a wall of pink or rose- 

 coloured roses; at another corner extends a turf or led of 

 red roses. A hundred Bengal roses, with purple flowers, have 

 been palisaded upon the ground, and cover it with leaves and 

 flowers. But let us go back to the foot of the old wall. 



The soil is there sandy and hot, the grass is thin, — there 

 are no flowers to be seen: it is not, however, a desert; here, 

 in the sand, is a little tunnel of two inches in width and 

 nine in depth, dug spirally, — it is a trap made by a sports- 

 man; but see, here he comes to finish his snare. The ant- 

 lion lives on prey; it is a sort of yellowish worm, which 

 appears grey on account of the labours to which it gives 

 itself up, and which cover it with sand and dust ; its head is 



