20 
FLORAL BEAUTIES. 
of animals, when he found what time and labour 
were necessary to study the habits of all the visi- 
tants to and dwellers about the leaves and blos- 
soms of the plant on his window-sill. The minute 
investigation of one of these aloes astonished me 
almost as much. Little snails, with smooth, yellow 
shells, called Helicinse, lurked under the decaying 
footstalks ; creatures, belonging to the bug or 
hemipterous tribes, of extravagant shapes, reposed 
on the long green leaves ; gigantic spiders called 
Ncphiloe, with very long legs, and gold and silver 
spotted bodies, hung, head downwards, motionless 
in the middle of their wide-spread nets, suspended 
from leaf-point to leaf-pouit ; hairy spiders, short- 
legged and bloated, guarded jealously their nests, 
soft, yellow, silken bags filled with spider-babies in 
the deep-set axils of the leaves ; while among the 
rafTQ’cd fibres of the root roamed thousand-legs and 
centipedes ! 
Leaving the shore and proceeding a little inland, I 
found myself surrounded on all sides by troops of 
floral beauties. There were flowers with trumpet- 
