[Fair Cyprepedia. l. 505. The cyprepedium from South America is supposed to be of larger size and brighter colours than that from North America from which this print is taken; it has a large globular nectary about the size of a pidgeon's egg of a fleshy colour, and an incision or depression on its upper part, much resembling the body of the large American spider; this globular nectary is attached to divergent slender petals not unlike the legs of the same animal. This spider is called by Linneus Arenea avicularia, with a convex orbicular thorax, the center transversely excavated, he adds that it catches small birds as well as insects, and has the venemous bite of a serpent. System Nature, Tom. I. p. 1034. M. Lonvilliers de Poincy, (Histoire Nat. des Antilles, Cap. xiv. art. III.) calls it Phalange, and describes the body to be the size of a pidgeon's egg, with a hollow on its back like a navel, and mentions its catching the humming-bird in its strong nets.
The similitude of this flower to this great spider seems to be a vegetable contrivance to prevent the humming-bird from plundering its honey. About Matlock in Derbyshire the fly-ophris is produced, the nectary of which so much resembles the small wall-bee, perhaps the apis ichneumonea, that it may be easily mistaken for it at a small distance. It is probable that by this means it may often escape being plundered. See note on lonicera in the next poem.
A bird of our own country called a willow-wren (Motacilla) runs up the stem of the crown-imperial (Frittillaria coronalis) and sips the pendulous drops within its petals. This species of Motacilla is called by Ray Regulus non cristatus. White's Hist. of Selborne.]
[Illustration: Cypripedium. London, Published Dec'r 1st 1791 by J.
Johnson, St. Paul's Church Yard.]
2. "Shield the young Harvest from devouring blight,
The Smut's dark poison, and the Mildew white;
Deep-rooted Mould, and Ergot's horn uncouth,
And break the Canker's desolating tooth.
515 First in one point the festering wound confin'd
Mines unperceived beneath the shrivel'd rin'd;
Then climbs the branches with increasing strength,
Spreads as they spread, and lengthens with their length;
—Thus the slight wound ingraved on glass unneal'd
520 Runs in white lines along the lucid field;
Crack follows crack, to laws elastic just,
And the frail fabric shivers into dust.
[Shield the young harvest. l. 511. Linneus enumerates but four diseases of plants; Erysyche, the white mucor or mould, with sessile tawny heads, with which the leaves are sprinkled, as is frequent on the hop, humulus, maple, acer, &c. Rubigo, the ferrugineous powder sprinkled under the leaves frequent in lady's mantle, alchemilla, &c.
Clavus, when the seeds grow out into larger horns black without, as in rye. This is called Ergot by the french writers.
Ustulago, when the fruit instead of seed produces a black powder, as in barley, oats, &c. To which perhaps the honey-dew ought to have been added, and the canker, in the former of which the nourishing fluid of the plant seems to be exsuded by a retrograde motion of the cutaneous lymphatics, as in the sweating sickness of the last century. The latter is a phagedenic ulcer of the bark, very destructive to young apple- trees, and which in cherry-trees is attended with a deposition of gum arabic, which often terminates in the death of the tree.]
[Ergot's horn. l. 513. There is a disease frequently affects the rye in France, and sometimes in England in moist seasons, which is called Ergot, or horn seed; the grain becomes considerably elongated and is either straight or crooked, containing black meal along with the white, and appears to be pierced by insects, which were probably the cause of the disease. Mr. Duhamel ascribes it to this cause, and compares it to galls on oak-leaves. By the use of this bad grain amongst the poor diseases have been produced attended with great debility and mortification of the extremities both in France and England. Dict. Raison. art. Siegle. Philosop. Transact.]
[On glass unneal'd. l. 519. The glass makers occasionally make what they call proofs, which are cooled hastily, whereas the other glass vessels are removed from warmer ovens to cooler ones, and suffered to cool by slow degrees, which is called annealing, or nealing them. If an unnealed glass be scratched by even a grain of sand falling into it, it will seem to consider of it for some time, or even a day, and will then crack into a thousand pieces.