Nor is the English "Flower-garden" less represented by some of our most beautiful native flowering plants. Many of these occur in what the author has called, with some indifference to etymological combination, his "Alpinery." This is constructed on a small mound near the "Fern-glen," and in the fibrous loam and stones alpine plants seem to flourish. It is so arranged that "there is scarcely any time of the year when some lovely object may

not be found" in blossom. Another like unto it is termed the "Saxifrage Garden," and still another, called the "Sempervivum Garden." In the former grow most European saxifrages, than which few flowers are more chastely beautiful. The Sedums, in their variety of leaf and flower, are scarcely less attractive. In the pretty streams which water this delightful estate grow the Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus), and the Water soldier (Stratiotes

are also represented and illustrated, as are the freshwater algae, lichens, mosses, microscopic fungi, &c. Weeds and wild plants, ornamental grasses-each has its section and appropriate representation. Perhaps among our edible fungi none can be grown with such certainty, or are of such use in the kitchen for flavouring purposes, as the Morell (Morchella esculenta), and yet we usually trust to the chapter of accidents to be supplied with them. The chapter on "My Forest Trees" is very entertaining, as the author has collected an assortment from all climes, including the Hardy Palm (Chamaerops excelsa), the only one that will live out of doors in this country. The illustrations of these trees and of the "Shrubs" are among the best in the book.

Fig. 144. Hawfinch.

and terrestrial kinds, frugivorous, insectivorous, and rapacious. One cannot wonder that a charming spot like "My Garden" should be a retreat for our feathered songsters, especially when they receive succour and protection so freely. Accordingly, we find a tolerable list of birds, such, perhaps, as could only be collected together under these auspices

"ANOTHER PHARAOH."

I HAVE long been wishing to send an account of

my king of pets to SCIENCE-GOSSIP, and I have now been so effectually stirred up by "M. A. D.'s" charming history of his ancient Majesty "King Pharaoh," that I will ask you to insert a short chat concerning one of the same solemn dynasty, even at the risk of seeming to have occasionally copied from the prior history.

Unlike "Pharaoh," my young owl, fresh from a nest on the pleasant banks of the Wye, was rescued out of pure charity, at the price of twopence halfpenny, from some ruthless urchins who had killed its baby-mate (they are generally hatched in couples), and were proceeding to dispatch him also, on the plea that "owls are unlucky"; and charity proved its own reward, by the fund of amusement the bird has ever since afforded us.

He looked so grotesquely sad, so hideously illproportioned, that we could never look at him for the first week without éclatant de rire, and he was at once given Mr. Wood's admirable designation, "ovλoç övεpoç." Unlike "Pharaoh," he never caught a cold in his head, but, curiously like him, be at first shared my bedroom, until his erratic habits at night-padding all about the room as if possessed of heavy human feet-caused him to be banished to the cellar, where he soon chose a dark shelf and "moped supreme"; like Pharaoh, too, manifesting a great love of climbing stairs, frightening cookey not a little when she met this imp of darkness coming up from the lower regions into her own domains. And he was hideous !-a shapeless mass of fluff of pepper-and-salt hue, with those great mournful eyes, like a child's bad drawing, or some lusus naturæ, that only exists in illustrated books of fairy-tales. But he changed and changed as his feathers grew out, and we watched, as the tadpole did when his tail fell off, and said "What next?" Never till now did I understand the compliment a gentleman paid me when I was a little child; he exclaimed, "You are like the young owls, growing prettier every day." A somewhat doubtful one I feel it now!

Owlos had to be fed by cramming at first, and he liked it so much that in his solemn laziness he would never have fed himself at all, had he not been served with a little wholesome neglect in the matter of waiting on him at meals. He is fond of snails for pudding, after his raw meat dinner; but he will never touch them in winter or early spring, until they have become juicy by fresh green feeding.

Like "Pharaoh," he looks very picturesque with a mouse in his beautiful, hawk-like, fawn-coloured claw; but he looks his best when, leisurely holding a long writhing earth-worm, he reminds me of the old picture of Jove's eagle clutching the thunderbolts.

He soon became very tame; his favourite perch was on the top of the drawing-room door, or on the middle frame of the window-sash, from which he would watch the passers-by in the street for hours, turning his head after them till they were out of sight, and making the most ludicrous succession of bows to them, sometimes describing a circle with his head, raising himself up and down to make it as large as possible. A cracking with his beak was the sign of his grave displeasure, and this was invariably bestowed on a peculiarly large chignon, or when any outrageous display of colours in coiffure passed under the window and offended his owlship's stern taste. When tired of moralizing on street processions he would fly back to the drawing-room table, and laying his shock head on the soft cloth, he would watch my work with his great earnest eyes till they gradually closed in sleep; or would gently nibble my hair all over, drawing each bit through

his bill so delicately! closing his eyes all the while in mesmeric bliss.

Now he is promoted to a large wire-built place under the trees in the garden, next to the bantampen. He eyed his fellow-pets at first with great interest, but soon made up his mind that they were too big to eat, and lived in most harmonious terms with them, until one day, when, seeing them enjoy a dish of earth-worms which he claimed for his own dessert, he suddenly pounced down among them with his sharp claws on their backs, and, as the Yorkshire people say, "squandered them" in all directions. Alas! one foul sin stains Owlos's soul, though I fear it does not lie heavy on his conscience! One morning we found him, shortly after a hatch of sweet little white French bantams had taken place, with a snowy chick in his cruel paw. We hung it, for an albatross, around his neck; but Owlos refused all signs of contrition-so he was wired off from his feathered cousins for ever.

Very early in life he, like "Pharaoh," tried to get into his jam-pot; so a huge bath was provided him, and now his delight is on warm mornings to splash himself all over (he is very modest in the act, and shuns all curious watchers), coming out a laughable caricature of a drowned rat-shrunk, bedraggled, and unrecognizable, like Barham's jackdaw under a curse, a mere section of his former plump handsome self. Some prying village children one day witnessed the ceremony, and exclaimed "Look, look; her's a washing hisself!" when his disgust at the murdered Queen's English was unmistakable, for he cracked at them, and retreated precipitately.

Another owl comes from the woods, and sits on a thickly-ivied tree near him. The stranger gives a soft, rippling Who-0-0-0," and Owlos answers with a scream; so we call the pair "Bubble and Squeak." He calls to me as soon as my step is heard in the garden, and whenever he has broken a saucer or knocked his tin dinner-plate over his table, he has always told me a long tale all about it, in such a concerned tone of voice! Would that he could speak! if only in the ancient Welsh tongue of his native county, which musically calls him "Dyllhuan."

- He is beautifully coloured and marked; his head and back are of a rich oak-brown, curiously mottled; what ladies would call his under petticoats are of a delicate fawn; his breast cream-colour, and this, together with his wings, is flecked with white in downward lines, in such distinct patches as to have the appearance of white body-colour paint. A beautiful crimson line surrounds his orb-like black eyes, and the variety of feathers about his face is quite indescribable, his very eyelids being covered with them, and all of that peculiar downy texture, each single lamina standing loosely out from the shaft, which enables the owl to fly so noiselessly at

night-coming down on its prey like a veritable flake of snow.

I will sum up my Owlos's biography by saying that he has just celebrated his second birthday by a supper of beefsteak au naturel, with snail fixings. The butcher always insists on spelling his name with an H in the weekly bill of provisions, a delicate allusion, I conceive, to the days of Ethelbert and Offa, when my pet's forefathers mingled their nightly cries with the howls of the wolves, in this ancient Welsh province of Menevia. W. E.

MICROSCOPY.

QUEKETT MICROSCOPICAL CLUB.-The Seventh Annual Meeting was held at University College, July 26th, 1872, Dr. Lionel S. Beale, F.R.S., &c., President, in the chair. The report of the committee, read by the Secretary, congratulated the members upon the continued success and satisfactory condition of the club, detailed its progress during the past year, showed the number of donations made to the library and cabinet, also the number of members on the list; and referred to the publication of the catalogues of the slides and books, the Quarterly Journal, the Field Excursions, the Annual Soirée, and the special services rendered by certain gentlemen named. The Treasurer's report showed a satisfactory balance-sheet, from which it appeared that the income from all sources had been £272. 5s. ld., and that there was a balance in hand of £12. 7s. 2d. Unanimous votes of thanks were passed to the Council of University College for the highly valued privilege of meeting in the library of that building free of charge; to the President for his valuable services during his two years' term of office; and to the Committee for their efficient conduct of affairs. The President then read the Annual Address, which was listened to with marked attention, and enthusiastically applauded by the meeting. The proceedings terminated with the election of officers, and the installation of Dr. R. Braithwaite, F.L.S., F.R.M.S., as President of the Club for the ensuing year.-R. T. L.

ON CLEANING AND MOUNTING FORAMINIFERA.When the specimens of foraminifera are small, it is best to treat them as follows:-Dry the mass, then place it under the microscope, and pick out the foraminifera with a split bristle placed in a holder, or a very fine camel-hair brush. Sometimes the brushes are required so fine that all the bristles, except one or two, may be cut away. After the objects wanted have been picked out, they may be placed in a test-tube (see SCIENCE-GOSSIP for August, 1872), and boiled in diluted potash. If the foraminifera require to be mounted dry, Mr. Davies says no better way can be adopted than dry cells and gum. (For full directions see "The Pre