80 ON PLANTS IN RELATION TO ANIMALS. 
poppies has been drawn from the seeds. Gerarde records that 
in his day it was considered pleasant and ' delightful to be 
eaten/ From the bright coloured petals of this plant, an 
ingenious little insect, the drapery bee (Megachile pap aver is), 
chooses the hangings of her apartment. She dexterously cuts 
out the petals of the half-expanded flowers, strengthens the folds 
and fits them for her purpose, over hanging the walls of her cell 
with this splendid tapestry, in which, when complete, she de¬ 
posits her honey. In classic lore the corn poppy has long been 
held sacred to Ceres; as it is, however, by no means a welcome 
guest in the fields dedicated to her service, we may regard it 
rather as a sacrifice required by her worshippers than as an 
offering to be encouraged, excepting in the sense that the eradi¬ 
cation of weeds, of whatever kind, found intruding in the crops, 
and detracting from their value, must be a labour worthy of all 
true disciples of the agricultural goddess.”* 
This species is well distinguished by its uniformly bright 
scarlet flowers, which is succeeded by a more or less rounded 
capsule, and the long spreading hairs with which the whole plant 
is armed. It is pre-eminently a lover of sand, and hence in all 
sand districts, whether recent or of older geological date, the 
presence of this poppy sufficiently indicates the nature of the 
soil. As a rule land in which this plant loves to grow is too 
light for wheat, but on the contrary it is safe to grow peas that 
will boil well, a matter which at one time was considered of 
great importance. Now the spread of the potato and the 
general use of white bread has caused less care to be exercised 
in the growth of boiling peas, a question we think much to be 
regretted, when a potato contains somewhere about 75 per cent, 
of -water, while peas have about 14 per cent, of this fluid, and 
while the tuber is mostly starchy the legume is highly nitro¬ 
genous. 
2. Papaver Lamottei , 
3. Papaver Lecoqii, are considered as varieties of the old 
form of P. clubium. Both forms are well distinguished from the 
P, Uhceas by strong appressed hairs over all the stems, flowers 
somewhat less bright, and a more or less oblong or conical 
capsule. The P. Lamottei is usually distinguished by its exu¬ 
dation of a delicately white milk wherever the young stems are 
broken, while in the P. Lecoqii this exudation is of a dark 
yellow colour inclining in drying to ochreaceous, but it is but 
right that we should state, that on our farm we sometimes meet 
with even common poppies in which this juice is more or less 
discoloured, while we have seen both forms of P. clubium very 
variable in respect to the colour of the juices ; thus, sometimes 
* Trom Notes by Mrs. Lankester. 
