1902.] I. H. Burkill — Flower of Ranunculus arvensis. 93 



dom as it was deemed safe. The first use that he made of his liberty 

 ■was to build bimself a platform on one of the trees that stood close to 

 his habitation. One cloudy August morning, while seated on bis arbo- 

 real percb, he noticed some eaily visitors open out their umbrellas to 

 protect themselves from a passing shower of rain, and straightway he 

 broke off a leafy branch and held it umbrella-fashion over his own bead 

 in immitation of the human folks! 



It was amusing to see him following visitors wbo happened to 

 have anything tied in their cloth, or who carried a bundle on their 

 head. Quick to observe, he had noticed some of them untying a bundle 

 to give him a feed, and by a simple process of ratiocination he came to 

 connect all bundles with food and feeding ! 



Physiological economy of animals affected by accidents. 



A Large White Egret (Herodias alba) having lived happily in the 

 Garden for many years managed to break one of its legs by sustaining a 

 fracture of its left tarsus. The fracture was set up and the wound healed 

 nicely, butthe shock of the accident must have materially affected the phy- 

 siological economy of the bird's system ; as during the next two years 

 it did not assume the full breeding plumage, or the bright green of the 

 facial skin which it usually did in summer and which was such a 

 characteristic feature of the bird Although in about three years after 

 the accident it began putting on the summer dress again, there was a 

 marked deterioration in the character of the plumes and the colour of 

 the facial skin, This might have been due to old age also. 



IX. — On the Variation of the Flower of Ranunculus arvensis. — By I. H. 



Burkill, M.A. 



There is a regular sequence of organs in the Phanerogamic flower, — 

 sepals, petals, stamens, carpels, — : which is never departed from, and 

 which may be said to be due to the passing of moods over the axis, — a 

 mood for the formation of sepals, a mood for the formation of petals, 

 a mood for the formation of stamens, and a mood for the formation of 

 carpels. Each mood is preclusive in its time of the others and definite ; 

 and the flower axis runs through them as a matter of course. 



In the flower, mood follows mood very closely ; jet the tendency 

 so widely manifest, for the floral organs to be formed in whorls is a 

 separating of the moods each from its neighbours by concentrating on 

 itself. 



