I t will prove a very easy species to cultivate, and a very free flowerer, in which it seems to follow tho
example of 0. luridum; hut it will, we fear, long continue a scarce plant, as it grows very slowly, anil
seems indisposed to make more than one shoot in a yeai', or than one shoot at a time. The species was
found hy MIT. SKINNER in the neighbourhood of the city of Guatemala, where it Howers in January;
and in the same month of the present year, the specimen was produced which is represented in our plate,
and which, wc may here observe, is very much inferior in the nimiber of its flowers to the wild specimens
which were attached to the plant on its arrival: beautiful, therefore, as the species now is, it may be
expected to prove far more so. after it has become better established and more reconciled to its artificial
state.
The insect, which graces the foot of our f
Wordsworth says.
s of lean and hungiy aspect, and, most assuredly, as
to the one which we had the honour of presentmg to out readers after the letter-press of Tab. II. There
we had a portly, well-conditioned insect, happy, to all appearance, in the resources of his well-stored
stomach; here Ave have an ascetic, half-starved wretch, who might not have eaten an Orchis for a month:—
yet they are positively one and the same creature. The fact is, that, like some beings of a liigher order,
our hero has literally tico faces. Look at him as he lies before you, and you pity his cadaverous
countenance and admire his self-denial; turn him over, ajid you have the verj' " eiSwXoj'" of plumpness
and sensuality: on one side all is " roses." while all is " thorns" on the other: reverse lum once more,
and he who but a moment since " looked every inch an alderman," is now the picture of an insect
anchorite. This seeming contradiction is thus explained: the head is protected by a membranous shield,
on wliich, as on a mask, a set of features are ver>- distinctly traced; and these, on the first view, might
almost be mistaken for the real physiognomy; this they, of course, are not ; yet, judging from the behaviour
of their o\vner during his voyage, they afford a nmch surer guide to his real disposition than would be
gathered from the examination of his countenance properly so called.