J S4 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



handful of the salvias that are growing beside the 

 campion, and which, like the flowering-trees, peas, 

 orchids, snap-dragons, and larkspurs, and other 

 horizontally-shooting blossoms, have their lips pout- 

 ing and their stamens disarranged by the inquisitive 

 bees, whose attractive hum and frequent kisses may 

 have prompted Roman girls to sing about purple 

 flowers. These, you see, in consequence possess 

 five divisions of the calyx and only four of the petals ; 

 there are two developed stamens and two un- 

 developed ones, showing them to be true dead-nettles 

 which have been gradually degraded as regards their 

 number of floral parts, and in respect to the repro- 

 duction of their kind. In Italy the men are hand- 

 some, on the Spanish seaboard the women are 

 beautiful ; how sad is the thought that breathes across 

 from the rose-trellis and intimates that nature must 

 yield to art. 



We will condescend to notice the purple shep- 

 herd's-purse and the purple oat-grass, which are 

 likewise the neighbours of the tinted campions. 

 Maria gratia plena rubella is hung with the heart- 

 shaped pods commonly confined to the top of the 

 spike of our old friend pastoris, and its petals are 

 smaller, making it appear as though the Punic dye 

 had arrested its floral development. And as to the 

 staining process, — leaves, : flowers, and insect-wings 

 are tinted upon an immaculate ground, we presume. 

 For instance, the delicate lemon-coloured blossoms 

 of the minute crucifera, Cypreola, just visible on 

 the wall-coping, after blowing bleach into white ; 

 but in what measure the chemistry of the surrounding 

 soil is implicated, remains a question. The alpine 

 anemone is yellow on granite rocks, on English 

 fallows the dead-nettle has a tender red ; on the 

 Surrey chalk-hills many garden flowers become 

 white. 



Here, on the bank that leads to our arbour, are 

 tiny hair-bells, one of which, sucked by the blight, 

 has assumed the shape of a Chinese lantern, ox-eyes 

 no larger than a daisy ; and in the damp ooze of the 

 stream, a real daisy with red and tubular rays resem- 

 bling a brush stiffened with rouge ; also glossy 

 hawthorn with two styles, neat for a bonnet. How 

 recluse is the spot ! A subdued warble animates the 

 twilight of the leaves, the lake that glints beneath 

 the garden wall has become streaked over with the 

 dreamy blue that shines from the hepatica on the 

 ivied bank, and curdles on the starch-hyacinths : it 

 tinges the frothing goblet as we raise it to pour in the 

 Yvorne wine. Botany, they say, is dry, because no 

 one can conceive our object in developing the rocks, 

 and leaves, and flowers ; we commence to live as if 

 the heavens contained no sadness, the earth no tomb. 

 In an after-dinner nap we fondly recall the grey 

 shingle where we picked the campions despite, and 

 the gristly Apollo butterfly that arose in the gloomy 

 ravine with a rustling sound. When it settled on 

 the roseate Knautia head we examined it a moment 



in the sunshine, and we noticed on its wings two red 

 burns, such as might have been caused by our holding 

 the lens a little obliquely ; but now it appears on 

 waking that the table-napkin which is placed on the 

 head to ward off the meridian heat is quite covered 

 over with similar round wafers and rings of light, 

 notwithstanding that its meshes are square. Two of 

 these celestial crowns, forsooth, must have branded 

 its hind-wings. But stay, what little moth is this 

 idling on the broken pane, whose wings beneath the 

 searching lens resemble an umbrella frame ? We have 

 long fancied that it was a flying fan, and have called 

 it the twenty-plumed moth : but its plumes that we 

 took to be the spokes, are recognised to be the 

 branching air-veins of its absent wings, for they re- 

 main covered over with their scales, and they are 

 softly-feathered along with their bordering fringe. 

 Other plume-moths which are less fully developed 

 explain this process, for they are only favoured with 

 a feathered notch in their forewings, under which 

 they fold, fan-like, the plumes into which their hinder 

 ones have been already slit. Once upon a time then,, 

 the ancestor of this indolent inhabitant of the honey- 

 suckle canopy expanded his wings on the dewy 

 flower-lips and wet grass, and so, indeed, did its 

 descendants, until, in process of time, they became 

 deprived of their delicate membranes and skeletonised 

 like the poplar-leaf when it lies on the decaying 

 mould, and then, as their owners, who were not too 

 gravid to fly, continued to use them, they discovered 

 that they were changed into serviceable feathers. We 

 were iquite mistaken in supposing that all, the clear- 

 winged, feather-winged, and notched-winged moths 

 and butterflies that haunt the leaf-fall were relatives j 

 the swan-white candy-tuft on the rubbish-heap outside 

 with rib-like leaves, has a story to tell why it differs 

 from the white basket in the flower-beds, and it has 

 no relationship with the fennel save old associations. 



Primrose day has flown and the flowers of promise 

 have commenced to wither around the borders of the 

 lake. Let us revisit the happy hunting-grounds of 

 the Celts whose pile-supported villages once dimpled 

 the brink of the tranquil water. Dripping with 

 perspiration, we have at length gained the highland 

 pass, our green receptacle is surcharged with the large 

 blossoms that disclose in the mountain mist, we 

 breathe the delicious air of freedom, and a stony 

 valley and gelid lakelet loom below, where the oxlips 

 are yet in bloom and time seems to linger. These 

 oxlips retain the two forms of cup, but otherwise 

 they are stereotyped oxlips with no lineaments of the 

 primrose. Pause a moment and watch the yellowish 

 dusky-veined white butterfly flit by and settle abruptly 

 in the trickling moss among the soldanellas, which 

 our friend has pronounced to be the ancestors of all 

 their tribe ; and whose parasol-like bells are slit up 

 between the veins by the scissors of time and drip of 

 the dews, so as to present the identical ragged form 

 we notice in the wings of the plume-moths. 



