1 42 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



the most part children of the moist forests, and their very existence indicates- 

 the victory they have won in their struggle for light. They have literally 

 been forced up into the trees, and have attained their present development 

 by seizing positions of vantage with very little expenditure of materials. 

 Commencing as humble occupants of the shady soil in the forest, it has 

 been remarked that they have, during the course of ages, literally clambered 

 up into the trees, striving after the light, and ever struggling against the 

 precarious and fluctuating supplies of moisture and humus, inventing new 

 absorbing and fixing organs, and contriving fresh devices for resisting 

 threatened death from thirst or starvation, until at length their perilous 

 career was crowned with success, and they formed aerial meadows and 

 shrubberies. Their evolution is still reflected in the forest, where the 

 simplest still lurk low down in moist shaded crevices on the tree trunks, 

 and the more specialised ones are ranged successively upwards, until even 

 before the tree tops are reached perfection is practically attained. 



As to the practical lessons to be learnt from their study little more 

 need be said, for they are self-evident. Plants that have so far departed 

 from what may be termed normal habits must be treated somewhat in 

 accordance with that second nature which they have acquired by long use, 

 always remembering, however, that their requirements with regard to light 

 and shade, moisture and temperature, and food supply can often be supplied 

 without resorting to the precise methods which nature has adopted for 

 them. It is the essentials that must be borne in mind and provided for. 

 And their seasons of growth and repose must also be borne in mind if 

 success is to be attained. Use becomes second nature, and we do not alter 

 a plant's requirements one iota by bringing it in from the forest and 

 cultivating in our gardens. If nature has succeeded, we may also hope to do 

 so if we follow her teachings, not slavishly copying every little detail, but 

 striving to understand what is essential, and then applying that knowledge 

 intelligently. 



An Important Discovery in Color Photography. — At the meet- 

 ing of the Connecticut Academy of Sciences, Wednesday, February 12th, 

 Prof. A. E. Verrill exhibited several remarkable photographs in natural 

 colors, made direct from nature by a new auto-chromatic process, just 

 invented by Mr. A. Hyatt Verrill, of New Haven, after years of experi- 

 menting. One of these photographs was of a bright-colored Bermuda 

 crab, from life ; another was a Bermuda landscape in which the beautiful 

 tints of the water, etc., are well brought out, as well as the soft creamy 

 tints of the old stone residence at Walsingham, and the neutral grey of the 

 rocks. Three other plates were copied from water-color drawings of groups of 



