June, 1923.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. ae 
COLOURED PLATES OF SIKKIM ORCHIDS. 
T the meeting of the Linnean Society held on April 19th, Dr. B. 
Daydon Jackson, the general secretary, gave an account of the 
methods employed in producing botanical illustrations, dealing more 
especially on this occasion with colour work. Afterwards Sir David Prain 
instanced the case of Mr. Pantling in preparing coloured plates for his 
“Orchids of Sikkim,” by training eight native boys to colour his special 
portion of each plate, the last touches being put in by the last boy, com- 
pleting the colouring. 
As most of our readers are interested in the many fine Orchids of the 
above locality, a few notes on the ‘“‘ Orchids of the Sikkim-Himalaya,” by 
Sir George King and Robert Pantling, will probably prove of value. This 
important work, published in 1898, consists of four folio volumes with over 
450 plates. Three hundred copies were printed. In half the copies the 
lithographs have been lightly printed, and the flowers and their analyses 
have been coloured; in the other half the shading in the lithographs has 
been made darker, and the y have not been coloured. The drawings were 
all put on the stone by natives of Bengal educated at the Government 
School of Art in Calcutta. The colouring was done by the sons of Nepalese 
coolies, who had never, until Mr. Pantling took them in hand, been accus- 
tomed to use any implement more delicate than a hoe. Mr. Pantling’s 
perseverance and skill in drilling these boys into accurate colourists was 
considered marvellous by all who had seen them at work. A copy of this 
book with the plates coloured is in the Editor’s library. 
From the preface to this work we also learn that as regards the smaller 
and obscure species of Orchids indigenous to the Eastern Himalaya, the 
Period prior to the publication of Sir Joseph Hooker's account of the family 
in his ** Flora of British India’? was, to most people, one of comparative 
darkness. Descriptions of a number of them indeed existed, but these 
were scattered in the volumes of periodicals, many of which were accessible 
only to botanical experts. For many years Mr. Pantling had occupied his 
leisure by making drawings of the Orchids found on the Government 
‘Cinchona Plantation in Sikkim, where he lived since 1882. The preparation 
of these drawings gradually worked itself into a project for the preparation 
of acomplete Orchid Flora of the Sikkim-Himalaya; each species to be 
illustrated by a life-size figure of the plant, accompanied by analyses of the 
parts of the flower on an enlarged scale. 
For the exploration of the Alpine part of the country lying between the 
valley of the Great Rungeet and the higher snows, where it was believed 
some novelties might be found, a small party of trained Lepcha collectors 
Was sent during the hot and rainy seasons of several years. These men 
