206 A TOUR ROUND MX GARDEN. 



And ■when I inquired of the same people, they told me that 

 swans were sometimes met with upon the Eridanus; but 

 that their song, or rather cry, was not more agreeable than 

 that of other aquatic birds." But, let us return to the Nar- 

 cissus. Every one is agreed, we must understand him who 

 was formerly son of the river Cephisus,^to be Narcissus of the 

 poets. This narcissus is white, with a little exterior yellow 

 and red crown or circle, producing a charming effect. 

 Virgil says the narcissus is red : — 



" Pro purpuieo Narcisso." 



But Ovid, who describes the metamorphosis, says it is yellow 

 surrounded with white leaves, which is not dissimilar to the 

 narcissus we are acquainted with. 



" Croceum florem 



Foliis medium cingentibus albis." 



Crowns of narcissus were twined in honour of the infernal 

 gods, and placed upon the heads of the dead. 



A long time before this narcissus, the yellow narcissus 

 blooms in the still shadeless woods, at about the same time 

 with the earliest violets, or rather a little before them. 



A sort of fly, very much resembling a drone, burrows in 

 the earth, at a certain period of the year, at the foot of a tuft 

 of narcissus ; when, by a subterranean gallery, it has reached 

 the bulb, it deposits an egg in it by means of its wimble ; 

 after which it comes out again from the gallery, and resumes 

 its flight. From this egg will issue a worm, which will feed 

 upon the bulb till it shall become a fly similar to that which 

 has just laid it. 



I don't know whether the Egyptians were acqiiainted with 

 this fly, or if they held in sufficient horror so impious an in- 

 sect, which at the same time eats a god and makes a retreat 

 and an asylum of him. 



