LETTER XXXVI. 



FENNEL— THE ENCROACHING VISITOR. 



Fennel grows to the height of six feet, with branches of 

 bright green, and leaves so minute and numerous as to make 

 it resemble an ostrich feather. 



Pliny pretends that serpents are particularly partial to 

 this plant, and that they have good reasons for being so. It 

 restores them to youth, and recovers their dimmed sight, 

 which is for them a matter of great importance, if we are to 

 believe, as certain naturalists assert, that the serpent fascinates 

 various reptiles and even birds with its look, and forces them 

 to come to it by an invincible magnetic power. 



Physicians, for a long time, applied the roots of fennel 

 pounded with honey to the bites of mad dogs. At the end 

 of three or four hundred years it was discovered that this had 

 never cured anybody. 



As handsome in its appearance and yielding a much more 

 agreeable odour, the Angelica grows on the banks of rivulets. 

 The Angelica serves as an asylum and as food for the cater- 

 pillar of the beautiful butterfly, called Machaon. 



