COOL ORCHIDS. 85 
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 mak- 
ing 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. Sprcerianum was sold, as usual, for 
sixty guineas at Stevens’s; on the Thursday fol- 
lowing all the world could buy fine plants at a 
cuinea. 
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. mzveum is not pure white. 
My views, however, find no backing. At all other 
