METAMORPHOSES — NOMENCLATURE. 319 



since her entrance into the kingdom of darkness. One Ascal- 

 aphus declared he had seen her put three pomegranate seeds 

 into her mouth. Proserpine remained queen of hell, and 

 Ascalaphus was changed into an owl, as a reward for his 

 meddling. 



It may easily be imagined that Pluto in time became cooler 

 in his admiration of a wife whom he had had such difficulty 

 to keep when he had won her; but, however that may be, 

 it was pretty well known that he was not insensible to the 

 attractions of a young virgin named Mentha, daughter of the 

 old river Cocytus. 



Several daughters of rivers were beloved by the gods, but, 

 in general, their fathers took care to transform them into 

 something insensible in the moment of danger. Syrinx, pur- 

 sued by the god Pan, was changed into a reed; Daphne, on 

 the point of being caught by ApoUo, was metamorphosed into 

 a laureL So Apollo crowned himself With laurel; Pan made 

 himself a pipe of reed. 



Old Cocytus was less careful — the god was successful ; but 

 Proserpine surprised the lovers, and changed the nymph into 

 the plant which bears her name. 



Two oassidas and a chrysomel, a sort of blue beetle, take 

 up their abode in the aquatic mint. 



I am very much embarrassed when I wish to give a correct 

 idea of an insect or a plant ; to you, particularly, who have 

 never taken delight in either botany or entomology. If I 

 explain to you one word with which you are unacquainted, by 

 another of which you are equally ignorant, I cannot be said 

 to assist your progress in knowledge greatly; if, on the con- 

 trary, I try to find a similitude between that which I want 

 you to understand and something that yoii already know, I 

 run the danger of angering the learned, by the use of im- 

 proper terms. 



If I were to tell you that the chrysomeles is one of the cole- 

 optera, whose antennce are articulated globularly, the body 

 oval, the corslet wide and fringed at the sides, the elytra gene- 

 rally adorned with brilliant colours, you would be very little 

 the wiser — unless I told you that by coleoptera I mean insects 

 which have hard elytra; by elytra, the cases of the wings ; by 

 articles, the divisions of the antennce ; the antennce the kind 



