74 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, May 5, 1857. 
powers of the queen are not limited to two seasons, or at 
least that then they begin to fail; but we have no certain 
guide to direct such a speculation. We only know that 
nature has endued the bees with sufficient instinct to take 
every precaution for the perpetuation of the family under 
all contingencies.] 
THE SHREW AND SHORT-TAILED MOUSE. 
Strictly speaking, the last is rather a wood and field- 
mouse, but is very mischievous when it gets into Cucumber 
beds; also amongst early forced Strawberries. It bites 
these off for the sake of the seeds upon the outside of the 
I fruit, and often does much damage in that way to Straw¬ 
berries in summer. 
The Shrew Mouse is also blamed for this and other mis¬ 
chief, but we think it is carnivorous and a harmless creature; 
at least, we never observed it otherwise. Those who doubt 
this may see Buffon, Cuvier, “Journal of a Naturalist,” and 
“ Encyclopaedia Britanniea.” All agree that the Shrew, or 
Sorex araneus, is insectivorous. Buffon certainly says that it 
eats grain and putrid flesh, but none of the others. 
Although cats kill this mouse, they do not seem to eat it, 
and it is common all over the country. The Norfolk name 
for it is ninny , which seems to be derived from the specific 
name, araneus. But be that as it may, the Short-tailed 
Mouse is certainly more herbivorous than the long-tailed 
ones, and, as your correspondent, “D. T.,” mentions in 
No. 440, is more difficult to trap in the common way. I 
mentioned this in Loudon’s Gardeners' Magazine for 1849. 
The following is the pith of it:—“ At one time we could not 
trap Short-tailed Mice, but seeing and knowing their haunts 
to be in woods and fields, we suspected their principal food 
to be vegetables and roots. In this we were not mistaken ; 
for when we put some roots of the Bunium flexuosum, or 
Earth Nut, amongst the Cucumber plants, they were soon 
eaten up. After that we found no trouble in destroying 
them with traps baited with Earth Nuts. 
“Buffon describes the mouse we have noticed, and says 
‘ it is very plentiful in some parts of France, where it often 
damages corn by cutting through the stems to get at the 
oars by bringing them down.’ We consider that when they 
cut off our Cucumber plants it was in search of moisture, 
for when we placed water in the beds the injury done was 
less.”— J. Wighton. 
NOTES FROM THE CONTINENT.—No. 3. 
BERLIN. 
On Sunday the 5th and Monday the 6th of April there 
was a Flower Show in Berlin. It was rather a private com¬ 
petition among the gardeners of the neighbourhood than a 
I public Exhibition, as admission could only be obtained by a 
free ticket from Professor Koch or one of the Secretaries of 
the Society. The Exhibition Avas held in the English Hotel, 
and filled only one moderately-sized room. There were 
twenty prizes offered of a Friederichs d’or each, equal to 
about 16s. 9d. English money. Upon the right hand on 
entering there was a collection of mixed stove, greenhouse, 
hardy herbaceous, and forced plants, from the Royal Botanic 
j Garden, remarkable only for their bad cultivation, all the 
hard-wooded plants being fearfully “ leggy.’’ Indeed, the 
only plants in the room that would have passed muster in 
an English provincial Show were the standard Azaleas. 
These were really well-grown plants, and nicely flowered. 
The best were Gabriele, bright crimson ; Queen of Portugal, 
| purplish; Natalie, clear red, the individual flowers two 
inches and a half in diameter; Lactea Jloribunda, white, 
with delicate lavender stripes; Bcechmatinii, purple; and 
Versicolor , delicate pink. Tropceolum tricolor , trained over a 
vase-shaped trellis, and T. ceerulea, covering a wirework 
lrame shaped like a concave shell, were very pretty orna¬ 
ments. At one end of the room was a table devoted to new 
or rare plants, among which the most remarkable was a fine 
plant ot Begonia splendida , with leaves like crimson velvet. 
There was also a small plant of the still more beautiful 
B. picta , with its roundish leaves zoned with silver. Its 
flowers are large, pure white, and the stamens of the male 
flowers and the styles of the females bright yellow. There 
were two varieties of B. Thwaitesii, called B. Zeylanica and 
B. Stelzneri; but undoubtedly they are the same species, 
for I have seen the pale green and white, the almost black, 
and the mottled-leaved varieties all raised from the same 
plant. The prettily zoned-leaved species of Begonia, which 
was raised at Kew about two years ago from seeds sent from 
the East Indies by Dr. Royle, was also there under the 
name of B. Roylei. There were several Palms upon the 
central table: one of them, Chamcedorea Lindenii , about five 
feet high, with several yellow flower-stems, was very pretty 
and quite new. It is a native of Venezuela, and introduced 
by the curator of the Botanic Garden at Brussels, whose 
name it bears, and who travelled in that part of America for 
some time. Near these was a young plant of the long-leaved 
Aralia leptopliylla , wffiich, from its graceful habit, will soon 
become a general favourite. In another part of the room 
were some large bushes of Philadelphus Chinensis, covered 
with their sweet white flowers. This is a good old plant 
for early spring decoration of large conservatories, and is 
not so much used in England as it might be. There were 
a few Orchids, but they were for the most part of common 
kinds and badly grown. The only one worthy of notice 
was Cypripedium (or Silenipetalum) caudatum. It had three 
flowers open, and the sepals, which are lengthened out into 
tail-like appendages, were two feet long. It was stated that 
these tails had grown at the rate of two inches a day for the 
last ten days. The show of fruit and vegetables was re¬ 
markably poor. There were only a dozen ripe Cherries, two 
pots of the Princess Alice Strawberry with very puny fruit, 
a plate of Apples, and another of Pears, from Paris, a few 
sticks of Asparagus, and two plates of the small Artichoke¬ 
like tubers of Chcerophyllum bulbosum and C. Prescotlii, 
which are a good deal used here for flavouring soups; they 
are called “ Ivoerbelruebe.” This, with a few bad standard 
Roses, some inferior Cinerarias, and some Hyacinths, made 
up the first Show of the season of the Royal Prussian 
Society for the Promotion of Horticulture. 
I was much pleased the other evening with the floral 
decorations of one of the principal concert rooms here. 
There were, along the middle of the room, three tall pyra¬ 
midal stands, upon which the plants were so arranged as to 
give one the idea that they were three large bouquets. The 
ever-present Ivy hung over the rim of the vase-like structure 
which supported the stand; then came a circle of Cyclamens 
and Chinese Primroses; then Dielytra and Ferns; then 
Hyacinths, Narcissus, and Tulips, with a few small Dracaenas; 
then Deutzias, Lilacs, Begonias, and Azaleas; then a tuft of 
the graceful broad-leaved Grass, Panicum plicatum; and 
shooting up in the centre was a tall JDraccena tenuifolia . 
Other parts of the room were decorated with vases in which 
large Oleanders were growing, and with Ivy trailing over 
their sides. 
The weather here has much improved within the last 
fortnight. We have no frost now, and though the nights 
are rather cool the days are warm and spring-like. The 
trees are all just bursting into leaf, and the spring flowers 
are beginning to look gay. Brightest among them is the 
beautiful light blue Scilla Sibirica coerulea, which is common 
in eveiy garden, and is, as it deserves to be, a great favourite. 
P.S.—In reply to Th. von Spreckelsen I must say I 
was greatly disappointed at not being able to see the cele¬ 
brated garden of the Consul Schiller. As I had long before 
heard a very high character of it I called on my way to 
Flotbeck, but, the gardener being out, I was not allowed to 
go round the garden, the reason for which I could not com¬ 
prehend, as the person to whom I applied spoke German 
faster than I could understand it, and the short time I 
stopped in Hamburgh would not permit me to make another 
visit. As regards the crowding of the plants in the Botanic 
Garden, I must say I have since become acquainted with 
places where it is carried to a much greater pitch; for 
instance, in the Botanic Garden of Berlin, and still worse 
in that of Vienna.— Karl, 
