"The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

name of this luxuriant land was the Kingdom of Horror, and to enter it
was inevitable death'"*

* The region of the Niger. See Simmona's "Colonial Magazine."

"Humph!" said the king.
"'We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came to
another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous
animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads. These
hideous beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a
funnel shape, and line the sides of them with, rocks, so disposed
one upon the other that they fall instantly, when trodden upon by
other animals, thus precipitating them into the monster's dens,
where their blood is immediately sucked, and their carcasses
afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an immense distance from
"the caverns of death."'"*

* The Myrmeleon-lion-ant. The term "monster" is equally applicable
to small abnormal things and to great, while such epithets as "vast"
are merely comparative. The cavern of the myrmeleon is vast in
comparison with the hole of the common red ant. A grain of silex is
also a "rock."

"Pooh!" said the king.
"'Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with vegetables
that grew not upon any soil but in the air.* There were others that
sprang from the substance of other vegetables;*(2) others that derived
their substance from the bodies of living animals;*(3) and then again,
there were others that glowed all over with intense fire;*(4) others
that moved from place to place at pleasure,*(5) and what was still
more wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and
moved their limbs at will and had, moreover, the detestable passion of
mankind for enslaving other creatures, and confining them in horrid
and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of appointed tasks.'"*(6)

* The Epidendron, Flos Aeris, of the family of the Orchideae,
grows with merely the surface of its roots attached to a tree or other
object, from which it derives no nutriment- subsisting altogether upon
air.
*(2) The Parasites, such as the wonderful Rafflesia Arnaldii.
*(3) Schouw advocates a class of plants that grow upon living
animals- the Plantae Epizoae. Of this class are the Fuci and Algae.
Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass., presented the "National
Institute," with an insect from New Zealand, with the following
description:- "'The Hotte,' a decided caterpillar, or worm, is found
growing at the foot of the Rata tree, with a plant growing out of
its head. This most peculiar and most extraordinary insect travels
up both the Rata and Perriri trees, and entering into the top, eats
its way, perforating the trunk of the tree until it reaches the
root, it then comes out of the root, and dies, or remains dormant, and