68 



A NATUHAIIST'S WAHBERINQS 



had been enamelled on in an tmbroken sheet. It was found 

 quite solitary or in company only Avitk its mate, and never in 

 flocks. 



I I was please<l to see tlie liveliness of the village children, 

 who amused themselves with game-a very similar to those of 



j children at our conn try schools at home— games of marbles 

 played with small stones, very like what is called l-eip in the 

 north of Scotland, with varieties of chevv, tig, and blind-man's 

 buff. 



Hearing that I had come to reside in the village, a country- 

 man, Jilr, H. Lash of the Kosahi estate, sent me a warm 

 invitation to make his house in the mountains my heiid- 

 quarters, which, as Tjtpanas was a very nnprofitidjle station, I 

 wiis only too glad to do, Kosala was only a forenoon s ride up 

 through winding valleys to an elevation of 1800 feet. 



Jly gratitude can never be warmly enough eUpressed to this 

 esteemed friend (now, I regret to say, no more) and his accom- 

 plished wife, for their great hospitality and kindness ; and for 

 the assistance which for many months was afibrded me by my 

 host, both personally and through his servants and horses, in 

 making botanical collections in the large stretch of virgin 

 forest which he owned, specimens of whose great trees were 

 special desiderata with me. 



Orchitis abounded in great variety in the unopened forest, 

 while the tree trunks that had been lying felled in the coffee 

 gardens for some time were overnm with the species more 

 delighting in sunshine. Being soon struck with the large 

 number whose flowers fell without setting any fruit, — a fact 

 that first struck me while botauisiug some years before in the 

 south of Euroi^e,—! determined to institute a series of observa- 

 tions on these plants, a project in wliich 3fr. Lash — himself 

 one of those who sedulously cultivate science in their leisure 

 hours — entered with the greatest interest, and never w^earied 

 of personally searching for specimeua, for whose rearing he 

 put a great part of his beautiful garden ungrudgingly at my 

 disposal. 



The estate house, planned by himself, was a large tiled 

 edifice of planks not subject to the attacks of insects, elevated 

 a few feet on piles standing on an asphalt floor, isolated by a 

 stream of water entirely encircling the building, so that it was 



