NATURAL HISTORY QUERIES 
197 
the disused burial-ground behind the Chapel of the Ascension, Hyde Park Place. 
A forest tree flowering in autumn is, indeed, one to be cultivated ; hut is not the 
date named an unusually late one? The fine Catalpa at Devonshire Lodge, 
Marylebone Road, was only breaking flower on August 20, whilst last year it 
was in full flower on July 26. This year the earliest flowers I noticed were on a 
tree in Brunswick S<)uare on August 19, but these had been out some days. 
3, IVillow Mansions, Hugh Boyi) Watt. 
iVesl Hampstead, N. IV 
September, 13, 1907. 
[The books say July; but, speaking from recollection, we should not think 
September unusual. The tree was in full flower, but showing little sign of going 
over, in the third week in August in the South of Brittany, and a few flowers 
remained on the trees on the sunny westerly slope of Richmond Terrace on 
September 14 . — Ed. N.N. 
132, Water Lilies. — It has been stated in a recent number of a popular 
Natural History magazine that the Water Lily (Castalia alba), sinks below the 
suiface after dark, appearing again above the water at sun-rise. Could any of your 
readers inform me if this is a botanical fact, or merely a poetical myth ? 
9, Park Crescent, Brighton. Emma M. Nicholson. 
[The late Dr. Masters writes : “ The flowers are interesting from their power 
of collapsing their petals and of drooping on to the surface of the water, or even 
sirfking below its surface, during the night, emerging and expanding again in the 
sunlight. This peculiarity is also noticed in several of the foreign kinds, as in 
the Egyptian N. Lottes, of which Mojre, in his “ Paradise and the Peri,” 
thus sings : — 
“ Those virgin lilies, all the night 
Bathing their beauties in the lake. 
That they may rise more fresh and bright 
When their beloved sun’s awake.” 
John Smith, writing of Victoria regia, in 1871, says: “The flower consists 
of numerous petals of a pure white, and when fully expanded emits a powerful 
and pleasant odour. During the morning of the next day it partially closes, 
expanding again in the afternoon, the colour being then pink, and on the third 
day it finally closes and withers.” Perhaps the change of colour here suggested 
is only the turning back of the outer white petals and the spreading of the 
previously erect inner pink ones. The phenomena have been definitely 
associated with pollination, it being stated that if Victoria be pollinated on the 
first or second day of opening it does not open again. The fruit in most water- 
lilies forms and ripens below the surface of the water. Some careful observations 
on these points are desirable. — Ed. 
133. Bullock’s Museum. — Some eighty or ninety years ago there was in 
London a show known as “ Bullock's Museum.” I remember we had a book 
describing it, and it is mentioned in “ Frank ” by Miss Edgeworth. Can you or 
any of your readers say what has become of it ? 
George H. Courteny. 
[William Bullock, a north-countryman, opened in Piccadilly a museum and 
what he called a Pantherion. He had collected animals in Africa, and this was 
an attempt to show the larger mammals in a tropical scene. The show was, for a 
time, very remunerative, and its proprietor then built the Egyptian Hall, which 
has only recently been demolished. Bullock’s collection was dispersed by 
auction. — E d. H.H.J 
