286 MORE POT-POURRI 



a small garden, where we are all tempted to fight against 

 Erasmus' assertion : 'One piece of ground will not hold 

 all sorts of plants.' 



A great deal of pleasure is to be got by striking cut- 

 tings of Oleanders in heat, and growing them on in a 

 stove or greenhouse till the small plant flowers. I saw 

 the other day a cutting of double pink Oleander struck 

 last summer, with the largest, finest blooms, both for 

 colour and form, I have ever seen. It had been brought 

 forward, of course, in considerable heat. Oleanders are 

 now to be had of all colours, from the deepest red to 

 palest pink and pure white. They strike easier in sum- 

 mer if the stalks of the cuttings are stuck in water for 

 a few days before they are planted. 



I have lately been able to procure a book called ' The 

 Insects of Great Britain,' by W. Lewin, 1795 an ambi- 

 tious and comprehensive title indeed, and only one vol- 

 ume of the series ever appeared. But Mr. Lewin began 

 with the most attractive and showy of the insects ; viz., 

 butterflies. His plates are most beautiful and careful, 

 even for that excellent period of hand -coloured illustra- 

 tion. I suppose that everyone knows the easy way to 

 distinguish between butterflies and moths. In butter- 

 flies the antennae, or what children call 'horns,' are 

 always knobbed, and in moths they are the same thick- 

 ness to the end. When I was in Florence I saw an old 

 fireplace decorated with most lovely tiles. I am not 

 knowing enough to say if they were Dutch or Italian, 

 but they were very pretty. There were lines, brown and 

 yellow, round each tile, the inner lines cutting off the 

 corners ; then a dainty little wreath of Olive branches 

 and inside it a butterfly, the butterfly on every tile being 

 different. The ground-colour of the tile was a creamy 

 white. This book would render the remaking of such 

 tiles comparatively easy. 



