A Thirsty June 
the nest was empty to-day when I passed by and took the 
usual peep. 
June 9.-— The Yellow Asphodelline — King’s Spear is the 
old name — is in great beauty just now ; its golden spires are 
so effective in the border, but not much worth cutting for 
the house. It does not seem common in other gardens 
round about — at least I have not seen it. Great Valerian 
or Spurflower is out now in the old quarry, and looks very 
pretty mixed with Burdock. I never see Burdock without 
thinking of Andersen’s delightful story of the little Black 
Snails who lived under the Burdocks, and were served up 
on silver dishes. I wonder if Andersen meant Butter-burs 
by-the-way, not Burdocks ? I have never seen people 
eating snails here, though in Devonshire I have seen people 
picking snails out of old walls and eating them like peri- 
winkles, as they do in France : and I used to delight in an 
old story about a mother, during the Irish famine, who was 
haled before the sheriff accused of witchcraft because her 
children looked healthy when others were dwindling for 
want of food, and who confessed at last that the food in a 
mysterious barrel was just Snails ! In France it used to be 
a common sight during the vintage to see the grape-pickers, 
while they plucked the bunches of grapes, picking snails at 
the same time into the big pockets of their wide blue aprons. 
Pate d’ escargot is deemed good for consumptive people. 
I well remember as a child noticing the round boxes of this 
medicine in the French chemists’ shops, with the picture ot 
a snail on the outside. Snail broth used, I believe, to be 
an old English South-country cure for consumption ; while 
in the North country a gruesome cure for warts used to be 
hanging a snail on a thorn, and as the poor thing wasted 
away so would the warts depart. That picturesque old 
Jesuit, Rapin, in his garden poem, says that when Rhodanthe 
was changed into a Rose by Apollo her lovers were changed 
into Butterflies and Snails. The Devonshire name for a 
Slug was a “ Dewsnail.” Apparently, our common Black 
Slug is not an inhabitant of America, since I once found 
some Americans marvelling at his queer appearance, and 
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