134 
THE FLORIST. 
it; if found injured on the ground, or in a situation from which it can¬ 
not escape, it holds up one or two legs on the side of its body nearest 
the person approaching it, in a supplicating attitude, as if conscious of 
its helplessness ; even when the comb of a family, with their food and 
young brood, is torn from them, they do not attack and sting their 
destroyers, like other well-known social insects, but by their anxious 
running to and fro, and by a peculiar motion of their wings, exhibit a 
sense of their desolation, which appeals to the feelings of the benevolent 
like a keen reproach. 
In my next I will give a short description of the commoner humble 
bees, and of some of their usual enemies. 
T. E. P. 
CHRONICLES OP A. SMALL GARDEN.—No. IX. 
Everybody knows that Mr. Kingsley is a clever writer and an ardent 
naturalist (his “ Glaueus” being about as interesting a book on the 
wonders of the shore as can be put into anybody’s hand), but he can¬ 
not be a gardener. No, he cannot even have a small garden; for, 
imagine a man possessed with ever so small a bit, growing his half- 
dozen Roses, or bed of Geraniums, singing the praises of the “ east 
wind.” And, albeit your facetious contemporary “ Punch” dates from 
Fleet-street, and Mr. Kingsley from Eversley, Hants, yet there is not 
a gardener in England who will not side with the former, when he 
says— 
“It blows much too often 
Nine days out of ten 
and wonder at the perverseness of the man who can praise a wind 
that curls up his Rose-buds, blights his fruit, stops the growth of every¬ 
thing, brings its hoar frost at night, and its bright scorching sun by 
day, making us fancy we are in July, till we turn some unlucky sun¬ 
less corner to find we are in December. 
The last time I wrote we were luxuriating in warm weather, though 
1 had doubts as to its continuance: and surely that “vile north-easter” 
did come ; and though we have had a few sunny days that made us 
fancy we were in July, alas! all is gone, and flowers are at a stand-still 
—at least, I suppose they are working away underground, and making 
roots; but in this locality, where the east wind, to use the expressive 
local term, “puckers one up” so, there is no above-ground growth ; 
however, we hope for a change, and so I must say a few words more 
about bedding plants. 
Calceolarias supply a colour that is most useful in nosegays, and, 
moreover, brilliant in the ground—bright yellow, Many varieties are 
put forth as superior, and possibly some of them are so ; but still one 
adheres to old faces that you know, and I have not yet discarded the old 
viscosissima and amplexicaulis—the latter, by having his head pinched 
out early in the season, makes a dwarf bushy plant, and supplies 
abundance of bloom up to the late autumn. A newer one, Aurea 
