PREFACE. 



The completion of a Second Series of " Familiar 

 Garden Flowers " may suggest to some readers that 

 suitable subjects will now be growing scarce. But 

 there will be no scarcity even when the Third Series 

 is completed ; and it matters not how far we proceed, 

 there will still be suitable subjects remaining, so va'st 

 is the field in which these humble labours are 

 pleasantly prosecuted, and so infinite the variety of 

 beautiful and familiar garden flowers. We are still 

 only on the threshold of the temple of Flora, and in 

 the Third Series, therefore, we shall be enabled, with- 

 out difficulty, to present a selection differing entirely 

 from those in the two series now completed ; and we 

 look for augmentation rather than diminution ot 

 public interest, both in the flowers themselves and in 

 our humble endeavours to present their portraitures 

 truthfully. S. H. 



