a course of action that commends itself to respectable business men.  The circumstances gave no clue.  Messrs. Spicer were and are large manufacturers of paper; there is no visible connection betwixt paper and Indian orchids.  By discreet inquiries, however, it was ascertained that one of the lady’s sons had a tea-plantation in Assam.  No more was needed.  By the next mail Mr. Forstermann started for that vague destination, and in process of time reached Mr. Spicer’s bungalow.  There he asked for “a job.”  None could be found for him; but tea-planters are hospitable, and the stranger was invited to stop a day or two.  But he could not lead the conversation towards orchids—­perhaps because his efforts were too clever, perhaps because his host took no interest in the subject.  One day, however, Mr. Spicer’s manager invited him to go shooting, and casually remarked “we shall pass the spot where I found those orchids they’re making such a fuss about at home.”  Be sure Mr. Forstermann was alert that morning!  Thus put upon the track, he discovered quantities of it, bade the tea-planter adieu, and went to work; but in the very moment of triumph a tiger barred the way, his coolies bolted, and nothing would persuade them to go further.  Mr. Forstermann was no shikari, but he felt himself called upon to uphold the cause of science and the honour of England at this juncture.  In great agitation he went for that feline, and, in short, its skin still adorns Mrs. Sander’s drawing-room.  Thus it happened that on a certain Thursday a small pot of C.  Spicerianum was sold, as usual, for sixty guineas at Stevens’s; on the Thursday following all the world could buy fine plants at a guinea.

Cypripedium is the favourite orchid of the day.  It has every advantage, except, to my perverse mind—­brilliancy of colour.  None show a whole tone; even the lovely C. niveum is not pure white.  My views, however, find no backing.  At all other points the genus deserves to be a favourite.  In the first place, it is the most interesting of all orchids to science.[3] Then its endless variations of form, its astonishing oddities, its wide range of hues, its easy culture, its readiness to hybridize and to ripen seed, the certainty, by comparison, of rearing the proceeds, each of these merits appeals to one or other of orchid-growers.  Many of the species which come from torrid lands, indeed, are troublesome, but with such we are not concerned.  The cool varieties will do well anywhere, provided they receive water enough in summer, and not too little in winter.  I do not speak of the American and Siberian classes, which are nearly hopeless for the amateur, nor of the Hong-Kong Cypripedium purpuratum, a very puzzling example.