THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
JaisUARY Ei. 
2on 
coai-rulateil Mooil, wliicli liail escaped from a ruptured vessel, 
and by prossin;,' on tlie bnnii, Ac., liad caused death ; it was, 
llicrefore, ns you suiigested, a case of apoplexy. 1 sliuuld 
I be inclined to doubt the disease boinit caused by the ben's 
I baving been accidentally shut out of the laying liouso; lint 
i I sbould feel inclined to attribute the attack to the ex¬ 
tremely high condition of the bird. IV. II. Tkoktmkihi!.’’ 
“ Tullenham." 
DAHLIAS OF 1851.' 
{Conchidvdfrom pnt/e 187.) 
Malvina (Turner) ; rather flat on the face ; but, if all 
the flowers are left on the plant, and put out early, it will 
make a very useful flower, it being of a colour we want. 
Morning St.vr (Turner) ; very bright in colour, but I do 
not like the form; and the petals are very rough. I shall 
not grow it. 
JIrs. Southey (Whale); useless. 
Niobe (Salter) ; white tipt with rose. Rather too largo 
as grown by me; hut I think by leaving all the blooms on 
the plant this will be a really first-rate flower. 
Phantom (Noakes) ; large, coarse, and bad. 
Rembrandt; orange, striped with red; very bad babit, 
but not bad in form, and will be useful as a striped flower. 
I shall grow it again. 
Scarlet King (Green); the petal is good, but every 
bloom is too low in the eye for a show flower ; it comes too 
coarse. 
Redgauntlet (Keynes) ; this flower was sent without 
charge, and was worth several that were, charged ; being a 
good red, every bloom perfect, and well up. I shall grow 
it again, as I think it the best red yet out. 
Sir F. TnESSE(iEB (Rawlings); very fine; rosy lilac; 
particularly late in the season. Gne of the very best forms, 
and ought to be planted very early. 
Una (Keynes); white ; rather thin,but good eye. T shall 
try it again, but do not quite approve of it. Always con¬ 
stant with me, and fit to show. 
Victoria (Cook); crimson tipt with lilac. I do not like 
it; it is too low in the eye. 
White Standard (Brittle) ; blush white ; very good with 
me; form first-rate. I shall grow it again. 
Miss Bathurst (Dodd) ; pretty colour, but too thin. I 
shall not grow it again. It is a fancy flower. 
Miss Ward (Turner) ; another fancy yellow tipt with 
white. Not good. 
Nancy (Keynes) ; dull in colour, but form vei^- fine. It 
requires a moist growth. I had a few blooms quite models, 
fit for any stand. Fancy red tipt with white. 
Queen of Whites (Drummond); rather flat; good 
colour ; and will be very useful. I shall grow it again. 
Sir E. Whittington (Drummond); dark ruby ; quite a 
gem. Rather low in the eye sometimes, and requires good 
growth. First-rate in every respect. 
Sparkler (Barnes); very so-so. I shall not grow it 
again. 
Spectabilis (Salter) ; another shiped flower like Sem- 
hrandt, but decidedly better in habit, and I consider it a 
better flower. I shall grow it again. 
Tom (Drummond) ; comes all one-sided; petals not 
regular. I like to see them laid on like scales on a fish’s 
back. Not good. 
Triumphant (Kejmes) ; this flower came at first very 
small, and low in the eye; but having strong plants I cut 
out very severely, and had some very first-rate blooms, 
nearly all seifs. I had two fancy blooms, and they were 
exquisite. It requires extra good growth. 
This completes ray memorandum. I have given my 
opinion without fear or affection, with honesty of purpose ; 
and I think growers may depend on these remarks, for they 
are pretty true. Observer. 
NORMANDY. 
(Oonlinucd/rom page 273.) 
Though the whole of Normandy may be spoken of in 
general terras as a province of tolerably uniform character. 
fertile, undulating, well-wooded, and well cultivated, with a 
marked race of inhabitants (a Norman type of physiognomy 
and general buibl is perfectly distinguishable), still, ditferenl 
districts difle.r in a few slight points of manners and of 
]U'oduco, which 1 may perhaps by-and-by ])articulari/.e. 
For instance, in the Cotentin you find that article of bed¬ 
ding which you had left behind you in Germany, the 
edredon, or bed of eider down, to lay over you instead of 
blankets. It is not at all a French fashion ; the reason you 
find it here is, that there has been long and great inter¬ 
course between the Cotentin and Iceland. But the caps 
of the women are the most strange, varying, and distinctive 
evidences of topographical peculiarity of costume. Each 
town and neighbourhood has its own cap to display; so that, 
as these forms are very ancient, an illustrated treatise on 
! the caps of Norman women, with portraits, millinery 
details, and a map, would be anything but an uninter¬ 
esting contribution to Ethnology. 'I’hey are quite as 
j characteristic as the costumes of the Swiss C.antons. 
I To describe them intelligibly is next to impossible. The 
1 simplest and the ugliest fonu is when the woman wears 
on her head a common white-cotton man’s night-cap, 
with no other ornament than the tassel at the top. It 
made me think of women going to be hung. About Caeil 
is the head-quarters of these unfortunates. Others there 
are that seem to have a white apple-turn-over laid upon 
their forehead; others, again, have modelled their caps after 
the pattern of an extinguisher. About Candebec and La 
Malleraie is a tall cylindrical species of cap, which wo 
called “ church - steeples,” surmounted by streaming 
ribbons, and finished off ivith a couple of mains.ails at the 
base. One form, which just manages to miss being a 
becoming liead-dress, is that whereon the lace or net 
border is made to stand out stiff in front and all round, 
ns if it were trying to imitate a saintly glorjx At Vire, 
they wear a pleasing little sort of cravat tye, which 
Brummel must have envied if he ever saw it, on the top 
of the head, though not on the top of the cap. In the 
north of the Cotentin, as at Valognes, the head-dress 
becomes enormous: blown out with air, expanded with 
wire, and stiffened with starch, it is most imposing. But 
what becomes of it in an equinoctial gale would be in¬ 
teresting to inquire. Fancy a woman with n large white 
butterfly, a yard across from tip to tip of wings, alighted 
on her head, and then, from the place where the body of 
the butterfly would be, a muslin balloon arising of corres¬ 
ponding dimensions. And yet, with a dignified matronlike 
carriage, and the rest of the dress of rich materials, and 
neat, the whole effect is not ridiculous. Norman women 
of considerable substance still hold to the head-gear of 
their ancestresses. Some of these articles are even heir¬ 
looms. I am assured that there exists caps in Normandy 
worth from L.'iOO to 1,8(10 francs a head, from the value 
of the Flemish and the English lace which adorns them ; 
point d'Anglcicrre being in high favour. Observing an 
English lady make a full stop as she passed a trademan’s 
wife on Sunday afternoon, I inquired the reason. “ AVhy, 
only look at that lace!” she replied. I did look, and 
lamented my want of connoisseurship. But the most 
elegant, if not the most costly caps are those worn by 
the women of Granville; there is a tiu’ning up at the | 
sides, and a rolling back of the materials, which gives ; 
them quite an oriental or turban-like style. Add to wbich, 
that the face seen beneath is sometimes very modest, 
pleasing, and pretty. Granville would furnish a better 
model for a Madonna than any French town I Icnow. It is 
said to have been originally a I’hffinician colony; the cos¬ 
tume, therefore, and the cast of countenance, may be relics 
of the east. But Granville is altogether remarkable, from 
its rock, its granite church, its oyster pares, and its long- 
descended inhabitants. Little girls do not wear these 
curious caps, nor can I say at what age they assume I 
the head-ornaments of womanhood; probably, like young 
Guinea-Fowl, they shoot their horn when about two-thirds 
grown, for at'Avranches, where they wear a sort of blue 
paper or silk dunce’s cap, as the foundation for the muslin 
and the lace, 1 observed some young women who might be 
four feet high, and they were topped, or continued, or pro¬ 
duced, in mathematical language, by caps at least half as 
high as themselves. Do not imagine that the subject of 
