THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
237 
I found two or three tubers in every pot. Those that were on the bottom 
of the pot were of a round form, and all the others were elongated. I 
put all these tubers in pots filled with dry sand, and kept them in a shady 
cool place in the greenhouse all summer. In the month of December 
the round tubers began to germinate, when I immediately removed them 
from the dry san d, and planted them in sandy heath-mould. The other tubers 
of an oblong form (many of which were of the size of a small potatoe) put 
out roots, but did not send up a shoot till the end of the month of January, 
notwithstanding the greatest care and trouble that were taken with them. 
It was this circumstance that gave me the idea of inserting young 
lateral shoots of T. tricolorum in these tubers as an experiment; and to 
effect this I took a young lateral shoot of an inch and a half long, and cut 
it obliquely. I then made a small incision in the side of the tuber and 
put in the graft, in the same way as the usual mode of grafting other 
plants, but without fastening or binding in the shoot, after which I put it 
under a bell-glass. After a lapse of fourteen days, I saw, to my great 
delight, the same shoot united and grown to the tuber; and at the end of 
February it had attained a height of eight or ten inches, and was profusely 
covered with flower-buds. This induced me to make the same attempts 
with other species of Tropseolums, such as grafting T. brachyceras and 
T. tricolorum on T. pentaphyllum and T. tuberosum , which fully answered 
my expectations. 
ESSAYS ON ORNITHOLOGY. 
BY MR. MAIN. 
THE RAVEN TRIBE. 
There are nine distinct species of the genus Corvus, the principal of 
which is the raven ( Corvus corax). These birds are large and powerful, 
but not very numerous. In some parts of Great Britain, and particularly 
in Scotland, they are regarded as birds of evil omen, and their presence 
near a dwelling-house is thought indicative of the approaching death of 
one of the inmates. So strong is this superstitions feeling on the western 
coast of Scotland, that many a hardy fisherman of that country would 
sooner face the fiercest wind that ever blew, than one of these birds. 
Ravens build their nests in lofty trees ; and White of Selborne has 
immortalised a pair, who built their nest for many years in the fork of a 
lofty oak, the trunk of which was slender, and free from branches to a 
great height. At last, this tree was to be felled; and the time fixed upon 
