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LETTERS FROM 
to be roughly handled without performing 
this extraordinary feat; but even these will 
generally squirt out their juice upon being 
punctured with a knife. Some of these little 
gourds, which were laid on our table, startled 
us several days afterwards, by shooting their 
seeds and juice across the room against the 
window. 
The greatest ornament of the uncul¬ 
tivated parts on the coast is the asphode- 
lus ramosus , an English garden plant, 
which grows luxuriantly among the rocks 
wherever it can find nourishment for its 
roots. Some of these plants are three or 
four feet high, and have several hundred 
light-pink blossoms; on these we find two 
or three species of beetles of the genus 
scarab(eus,* and a pretty little cerambyx ,* 
the larva of which inhabits the stem of the 
* Liuuean genera. 
