2. Vines. Oranges. Diana's trees. Kew garden. The royal family. 541. XV. Offering to Hygeia. 587. Departure of the Goddess. 629. THE ECONOMY OF VEGETATION. CANTO IV. As when at noon in Hybla's fragrant bowers CACALIA opens all her honey'd flowers; Contending swarms on bending branches cling, And nations hover on aurelian wing; 5 So round the GODDESS, ere she speaks, on high Impatient SYLPHS in gawdy circlets fly; Quivering in air their painted plumes expand, And coloured shadows dance upon the land. [_Cacalia opens_. l. 2. The importance of the nectarium or honey-gland in the vegetable economy is seen from the very complicated apparatus, which nature has formed in some flowers for the preservation of their honey from insects, as in the aconites or monkshoods; in other plants instead of a great apparatus for its protection a greater secretion of it is produced that thence a part may be spared to the depredation of insects. The cacalia suaveolens produces so much honey that on some days it may be smelt at a great distance from the plant. I remember once counting on one of these plants besides bees of various kinds without number, above two hundred painted butterflies, which gave it the beautiful appearance of being covered with additional flowers.] I. "SYLPHS! YOUR light troops the tropic Winds confine, 10 And guide their streaming arrows to the Line; While in warm floods ecliptic breezes rise, And sink with wings benumb'd in colder skies. You bid Monsoons on Indian seas reside, And veer, as moves the sun, their airy tide; 15 While southern gales o'er western oceans roll, And Eurus steals his ice-winds from the Pole. Your playful trains, on sultry islands born, Turn on fantastic toe at eve and morn; With soft susurrant voice alternate sweep 20 Earth's green pavilions and encircling deep. OR in itinerant cohorts, borne sublime On tides of ether, float from clime to clime; O'er waving Autumn bend your airy ring, Or waft the fragrant bosom of the Spring. [_The tropic winds_. l. 9. See additional notes, No. XXXIII.]