THE PERILS OF ORCHID HUNTING. 93 



thirteen hundred dollars for the purpose of hybridizing. A plant 

 of MasdevaUia Tovarcnsis was cut up in the same wa}- and its 

 fragments sold for large sums, until a consignment of forty thou- 

 sand plants from Caracas reduced the price to a mere song. 



Mr. Fitz-gerald tells an interesting story of the orchid Cypri- 

 pedium Spiccriaiunu. An English lady, a Mrs. Spicer, sold to an 

 orchid dealer for three hundred and fifty dollars a strange orchid 

 that had appeared in her greenhouse. The dealer divided his 

 specimen and sold the pieces at fabulous prices. Then the London 

 dealer set about to discover the whereabouts of this priceless plant. 

 He knew that it had arrived in a mass of Cypripcdium insigne, 

 therefore it must be a native of the Himalayas. Mrs. Spicer's 

 son was a tea planter on the confines of Bhutan, and it was he who 

 had found the orchid. The London dealer sent his man to get 

 from the tea planter all he could about the locality in which the 

 orchid had been discovered, and then to set out after it. The 

 orchid hunter " swam and waded through giant rivers, often 

 waist deep in miasmatic mud, or plowed his way through the 

 incredibly dense tropical vegetation, and finally came upon a glade 

 encircled by rocks steep as a wall, and here at last, with a cry 

 of delight, he reached out his bamboo rake and dragged down 

 masses of the gorgeous orchid he had sought so long and so 

 heroically." 



The element of gambling begins as soon as the orchid hunter 

 finds his plants. He nn;st bring them to his hut, dry them for 

 four weeks, and then, when they are entirely free from moisture, 

 fasten them to tough twigs and pack them in wooden cases with 

 a liberal allowance of air. They are then transported by coolie, 

 llama, raft or elephant, over land and across the ocean. If they 

 are exposed to sunlight, or are placed too near the boilers on 

 board steamer, they may all be ruined. " Ten thousand plants," 

 writes Mr. Fitz-gerald, " may be collected on some remote Andean 

 peak or Papuan jungle with infinite care, and consigned to Europe, 

 the freight alone amounting to thousands of dollars, yet on arrival 

 there may not be a single orchid left alive." 



M. AT. B. 



