chief arguments are the view of the great antiquity of the 
genus, held by Mr. Darwin, who, alluding to the anoma- 
lous characters of the flowers, regards Cypripedium as 
“the record of a former and more simple state of the 
ereat Orchidean Order;” and the great rarity of many 
of the Malayan species. * Now it is. not an easy thing to 
prove the rarity of species ‘in individuals, and in little - 
explored tropical and mountainous islands it is impossible. 
I have myself felt convinced of the rarity of an Orchid | 
as to which, as I afterwards heard, had I strayed right or 
left of the locality in which I had collected it, I should 
have found it abundant over a large area; and I know of 
more than one noble Orchid (Arachnanthe Cathearti is 
one), long supposed to be most rare in the country where 
I first found it, becoming abundant after a change in its 
énvironments. This is, as I am informed, the case with 
our own (,. Calceolus in one of its English localities, a 
species cited as an instance of approaching extermination 
in England. Nor must it be forgotten that OC. Calceolus 
inhabits the whole of North Europe and North Asia; just 
as the American CU. macranthum, or a yery close ally, 
stretches throughout the entire length of the,Himalayan 
range. Ifthere be any truth in the assumption of the 
species dying out, Messrs. Veitch’s suggestion that this is 
due to the paucity of-insects suitable for their fertilization 
is a plausible one, and one which may be eventually 
followed up in the case of 0. Rothschildianum by some 
fever-proof individual who will spend hours on the damp 
ground in the forests of New Guinea on the remote chance | 
of capturing its insect visitors, and thus discovering if 
these or their visits are rare. _ 
The subject of the antiquity of a genus or group of — 
plants is a very attractive one, and far too complex to 
enter on here. Such antiquity, when leading to extinction, 
is supposed to result in fixity of type, in rarity of in- — 
dividuals, and in the restriction of these in area. In 
respect of it I may allude to the singular fact that though 
Cypripedium is one of the few tropical genera of Orchids 
that inhabit both the eastern and western hemispheres, 
it has not hitherto been found in Africa or Madagascar, 
countries which have on plausible grounds been held to 
have been the most recently peopled with plants.—J. D. H. 
Fig., Column, magnified. 
