AMARYLLiDACEiE. 
181 
but perhaps an increase on shutting the lights and making 
up the fire ; and so circumstanced the flower of the Coope- 
rias obstinately refuses to open. If placed in the open air 
the day before the flower is to blow, it feels the natural 
evening refrigeration and expands like a star, and having 
once attained that posture it preserves it till it withers, that 
is about three days. The first' day my C. pedunculata tried 
to open it had been very cold and gloomy, and where it 
stood there could have been very little decrease of tempe- 
rature at night ; on the two following days the weather 
became gradually warmer, so that it felt a little more dimi- 
nution of warmth each evening, and consequently opened a 
little more, but the change was never great enough where it 
stood to cause a perfect expansion. The natural effect 
arising from decrease of temperature may be counteracted in 
like manner by the artificial treatment of animals. The 
African Whidah bird acquires fine plumage and a prodigious 
tail at its vernal moult ; at the approach of winter it puts on 
brown feathers and a short tail ; but if during the summer 
it is kept in a cold, sunless, and airy situation, and just 
before its autumnal moult is brought into a close and heated 
room, it will acquire a renewal of its summer dress ; and 
under such treatment it will never put on its winter plumage. 
I can entertain no doubt as to the generic identity of this 
plant and Drummondiana. 
Professor Don looked upon it as a Zephyranthes, not 
having seen the live specimen, and relying on the engraving 
in Sweet’s Br. fl. g. from a drawing by Mr. M‘Nab; but the 
engraving is very incorrect in the form and posture of the 
tube. The outline I have given is from a drawing also by 
Mr. M‘Nab, which was communicated by Dr. Graham to Sir 
W. Hooker, and kindly forwarded by him to me, together 
with the dry specimen of the flower received from Dr. Graham. 
In that drawing, which is correct, and of which the outline 
had been sent to the engraver before the bulb flowered at 
Spofforth, the flower has exactly the form and posture of 
Cooperia, and the only difference of structure is a very 
trifling increase in the prolongation of the petaline stamens, 
which are, however, only 1-1 6th of an inch longer than the 
sepaline. If Mr. Don had seen the live specimen or Mr. 
M‘Nab’s drawing, he would have entertained a different 
opinion concerning this plant. Dr. Graham named it Scep- 
tranthes, considering that its less expanded limb, its shorter 
