2 ' j0 THE COTTAGE GARDENER. I January 23. 
the portraits of the Spotted Eagle and the Peregrine 
: Falcon, for they are true to the life in attitude and in 
gaze, just as we have seen them; yet we only name these 
j as best where all are good, because we happen to have 
j been acquainted with them in a state of nature. The 
Peregrine Falcon has an interest in the mind of every 
one familiar even with no other than our lightest litera¬ 
ture. The days of falconry were days of chivalry and of 
romance, dear to our youthful memories, and associated 
with passages of fervid feeling, such as those of Juliet 
when she yearns “to lure her tassel gentle back again;” 
and that in Massinger, also alluding to the Peregrine, 
describing the “ tiercel-gentle ’’ pursuing his game— 
With such speed, as if 
He carried lightning in his wings. 
One of these birds we shot on a hawking ground of 
King John, between Woodham and Colchester, in Essex, 
and where it is recorded he was in the September of 
1212. That bird illustrated the firmness and bravery 
which every true portrait oi him indicates he possesses. 
The shot had inflicted a death wound, yet when a 
pointer attempted to take him in his mouth to bring 
him to our feet, the bird gathered its last remnant of 
strength into one effort, and died in fixing its beak into 
the dog’s throat. That it is a bird without fear is also 
told by the fact recorded by Mr. Morris, that although 
its native haunts are far from those of men, yet, “ strange 
to say, it has been known to take up a temporary resi¬ 
dence on St. Pauls Cathedral in London; anything but 
‘far from the busy hum of men;’ preying while there 
on the pigeons which make it their cote; and a Pere¬ 
grine has been seen to seize one in Leicester Square.” 
We unwillingly leave the theme, and we will do so by 
heartily recommending to our readers the work which 
suggested it. 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 
Sharp-pointed-leaved Stylewort (Stylidium mucroni- 
folium). — Botanical Magazine, t. 4538. — The genus 
Stylidium was named, towards the end of the last cen¬ 
tury, by Olof Swartz, a German botanist and author of 
several botanical works; and Dr. Brown has enumerated 
forty-five species of Stylidium in his Prodromus Flora 
Nova Hollandia, nearly forty years back. Since that 
time many others have been introduced. The name, 
Stylidium, is a diminution of Stylus, a column, and is 
the head of a small Natural Order called Stileivorts (Sty- 
lidiacese), belonging to the Gynandrous class of Lin¬ 
naeus, 20-Gynandria 2-Diundria. The filaments which 
carry the anthers in this order are united to the style 
which bears the female, or pistil, the two parts forming 
together an elongated column, hence the name. The 
second, or specific, name is from mucro, a sharp point, 
and folium, a leaf; indicating, in this instance, that the 
leaves end in a sharp bristly point. Stylidium is a New 
j Holland genus, forming little tufts of herbage, from 
which rise the flowers, either singly or on little rigid 
stems, in spikes or racemes, like an ear of oats, but 
blanched out in several directions. The flowers are 
small, numerous, generally and chiefly of a pinkish 
colour; indeed, they may be called New Holland Alpines, 
having a peculiarly neat manner of exhibiting their little 
gay flowers. They are easily managed in a greenhouse 
or window in little pots of some light earth, and many of 
them seed very abundantly, and are not difficult to rear 
that way. We should like Mr. Fish, or Mr. Appleby, to 
name half a dozen of the best species he may happen to 
be acquainted with as ornaments, and we would impress 
on the fathers of families to procure some of them, if only 
to teach the young ideas the extreme singularity of the 
conformation of their flowers and seed apparatus. These 
are the best introduction we know of to the study of the 
same parts in the wonderful creation of the Orchid race. 
In the first place, the flower is in one piece (monopeta- 
lous), and the opeuiug expansion is divided into five 
parts, as in orchids; one of the-divisions is smaller than i 
the rest, and answers to the lip, or labellum, in the 
orchid tribe. This lip rolls back, or is deflected, as the 
botanist would say; the column is longer than the open¬ 
ing of the flower, and hangs down with a bend over the 
short lip, as if wishing to get away from the flower. On 
the top of the style, or column, is now seen two anthers 
full of pollen, each dividing into two parts, and covering 
the top of the column; thus keeping the stigma of the 
pistil, or female, out of sight in the early stage of the 
flower; and if the anthers were to open while the parts 
were thus arranged, the pollen must necessarily fall away 
without a chance of reaching the hidden stigma; but 
here another extremely interesting phenomenon occurs: 
an insect, or a puff of wind, or, it may be, a hidden con¬ 
trivance in the parts, beyond our observation, disturbs 
the column, and instantly it springs up, fixes itself on 
