3 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
that was not the case. You have heard, no doubt, of Oncidium 
Lanceanum, which Lance discovered in Surinam a year or two before 
Colley went to Demerara. He (Lance) only sent over two or three 
plants to England, which made Orchid collectors mad. It had never been 
found in Demerara, but Colley stumbled upon a solitary tree (about five 
days’ sail up the Demerara river) covered from head to foot with this 
Oncidium. He immediately set to work and stripped the tree, determined 
not to give any others the chance! . . . Anyhow, it retrieved the 
fortunes of my expedition, for when a large, healthy cargo was known to 
have arrived, everyone (save the fortunate holders of Mr. Lance’s specimens) 
were prepared to go down on their knees for a bit, offering their greatest 
treasures in exchange. In this way (without any money passing) I became 
possessed of bits of all the then-known species which I cared to have. But 
for this unexpected find, my expedition would have been a total loss and 
bitter vexation. We did not then know that good Orchids are, as a rule, 
very rarely met with on the beautiful tidal tropical rivers, but must be 
sought on the nearest mountains, at an elevation of 3,000 to 6,000 feet.” 
In March, 1834, Mr. Bateman wrote to Mr. G. Ure Skinner, a merchant, 
trading with Guatemala, whom he had heard of through the specimens of 
birds and insects presented to the Natural History Museum, at Manchester. 
Mr. Skinner promptly responded, and in ‘less than ten years all the finest 
Orchids of Guatemala were in cultivation in British gardens, most of which 
flowered for the first time in Mr. Bateman’s stove at Knypersley”’ (Vettch 
Man. Orch., x., p. 131). ‘* Never shall I forget my delight,” said Mr. 
Bateman, in an address delivered before the Royal Horticultural Society, in 
February, 1867, ‘“‘on opening the first box of Orchids he sent me, all 
carefully packed and in the best possible condition. Though gathered at 
random, every plant was new. Masses of Epidendrum Skinneri (the first 
to flower, and thence named after him), divers other Epidendra, Oncidium 
Cavendishianum, O. leucochilum, and Odontoglossum bictoniense, the first 
Odontoglot that ever reached England alive.” 
The effect of this stimulus is seen in Mr. Bateman’s great work, The 
Orchidacee of Mexico and Guatemala, an elephant folio of forty plates, 
commenced in 1837 and completed six years later, of which only 125 
copies were published. The plants are depicted life-size, and are 
accompanied by suitable descriptions and cultural hints, also “ little scraps 
of gossip,’ as they have been described, “ literary, scientific, archzological, 
or ethnological gossip, as the case may be, but, in any case, noteworthy for 
its elegance and piquancy of style, and for the singularly felicitous choice of 
classical quotations.” The introductory portion is also unique in many 
respects, and the treatise on culture remarkable, considering the period at 
which it was written. The descriptions were accompanied with humorous 
