Darwin's "Flower Garden," and its history told in the florid verse of that work. These various figures have been introduced by the artist into the accompanying illustration, which not only gives the old fable, but its modern interpretation as well.

The "lamb" is a natural production, greatly helped in the development of the particulars in which it most resembles that creature by the ingenuity of the natives. The body is a portion of the creeping stem of a tribe of ferns, which generally grow as erect as trees. This stem is densely covered with beautiful jointed silky hairs of a rich golden color. On the surface next the ground a few roots are given off, while the leaves -or fronds, as they are called in ferns-spring from the upper surface. The fronds are as much as twelve or fourteen feet high, and have a long bare stalk before the leaf is spread out. The Tartar takes a suitable portion of this creeping stem for a body, deprives it of the roots, and of all the leaf stalks except four, which are intended to be the legs, two short ones for the ears, and a stump for the tail, and then turning it upsidedown, trims the stem, and so produces this marvel of the early explorers. The fern is a native of Eastern Asia; it has been introduced into our conservatories, where it flourishes, producing, after a few years' growth, good specimens of the "lamb.

The silky hairs of this fern form a favorite remedy among the Chinese for checking the flow of blood by applying them to a wound, in the same way as felt or cobwebs are used by some people in this country. The more fibrous and elastic hairs of several species of the same group, natives of the Sandwich Islands, are largely exported from these islands to California and Australia for stuffing cushions, and similar purposes.

The Rafflesia.

"Come with me, sir; come! A flower, very large, beautiful, wonderful!" exclaimed a Malay, who drew the attention of Dr. Arnold to a flower, remarkable alike for its enormous size and its anomalous structure and habit. And the surprise of the Malay was nothing compared with that of Dr. Arnold and his companions, Sir Stamford and Lady Raffles, when, following their native attendant, they saw among the bushes of a jungle a flower apparently springing out of the ground, without stem or leaf, and measuring at least a yard in diameter. The first news of this remarkable discovery created a great amount of curiosity in Europe, and no papers ever read at the Linnæan Society can be compared, for the ininterest they excited, with those in which the illustrious Robert Brown described this wonder of the vegetable world.

Sir Stamford Raffles having been appointed governor of a settlement in

Sumatra, and impelled by his great love for nature, resolved to explore that little-known island. On his first journey, in 1818, he took with him Dr. Arnold, an ardent and promising naturalist, who died as a new world was opening before him. He, however, discovered this gigantic flower;

NATIVE FOREST IN SUMATRA WITH ELEGANT SPECIMENS OF RAFFLESIA.

his drawings and descriptions were left unfinished, but his patron carefully preserved and perfected them, and Robert Brown perpetuated the memory of both in connection with the plant, by naming it Rafflesia Arnoldi.

The most striking feature in the Rafflesia is its enormous size; indeed, it is the largest and most magnificent flower in the world. It is composed

of five roundish leaves or petals, each a foot across, of a brick red color, but covered with numerous irregular yellowish white swellings. The petals surround a large cup nearly a foot wide, the margin of which bears the stamens; and this cup is filled with a fleshy disk, the upper surface of which is everywhere covered with curved projections, like miniature cow's horns. The cup, when freed from its contents, would hold about twelve pints of water. The flower weighs fifteen pounds. It is very thick; the petals being from one to three-quarters of an inch.

Gorgeous Flower with Repulsive Odor.

A flower of such dimensions and weight might be expected to be a treasure to the perfumer; but, alas, its odor is exactly that of tainted beef! Dr. Arnold supposed that even the flies which swarmed over the flower when he discovered it were deceived by its smell, and were depositing their eggs in the thick disk, taking it for a piece of carrion!

Another cause of wonder to the little band of explorers who discovered it, was that they could find no leaves connected with it. It sprang from a small, leafless creeping stem, about as thick as two fingers. Now a plant without leaves is like an animal without a stomach; for the leaves are to the plant what the stomach is to the animal; they separate from the air the food needed for the growth of the plant. Without them there could be no wood, no bowers, no fruit, no seed. Plants, therefore, have leaves-some consist of only a leafy expansion, and even the single cells of minute and microscopical plants are really leaves reduced to their simplest structure.

There are, however, strange plants which are actually leafless, making up for this want by using the leaves of others. Such plants are called parasites, because they feed on the nutritive juices of others. Thrusting their roots into the living tissues of other plants instead of into the earth, they appropriate the prepared food of these plants, and at once apply it to their own purposes for the production of stem, or flower, or fruit. The most familiar example of such a parasite is, perhaps, the dodder, one kind of which infests cultivated flax, while others are found on clover, heath, and whin. The gigantic Rafflesia belongs to this class. Without a vestige of foliage, it rises at once from the long slender stems of one of the wild vines of Sumatra-immense climbers, which are attached like cables to the largest trees in the forest.

The buds push through the bark like little buttons, continuing to grow until they have the aspect of large closed cabbages, and in about three months after their first appearance, the flower expands. It remains but a short time in perfection, soon beginning to rot, leaving only

the central disk, which becomes a large, rough fruit, filled with multitudes of small, simple seeds.

Brilliant Tropical Scene.

One of the arms of the Delta, through which the Zambesi pours its waters into the sea is the Congone. A richly colored picture unfolds itself before the eyes of the explorer who attempts to travel by it into the interior of the country. The first twenty miles is shut in between marshy lands and mangrove trees, the latter often draped in valuable lichens, which, however, do not seem to be gathered. Giant ferns, shrub-like palm trees blended here and there with the wild date palm, are seen throughout the forest, but the greatest number of trees found in them are the mangrove tree, or rhizophora.

These true amphibious plants do not love to be fettered to the earth, but throw out wide-spreading roots into the bed of the river, and not content with this, send down from their wide-spread branches aërial roots like strong ropes, which strike root as soon as they touch the ground, providing the parent stem with fresh support and nourishment, but making the tangle of roots by the shore almost impenetrable. The clusters of their pale yellow fruit contrast pleasantly with the bright green leaves, but are not good to eat. In many places patches of milola, with large pale yellow blossoms, cover the shore. Rope is made from the bark of this plant, and it is principally used for the lines to which the harpoons are fastened; harpooning being the favorite method of the natives for capturing the hippopotamus.

As we advance, screwpines become visible, and on passing from the Congone into the Zambesi we find some of them as high as church steeples, and Livingstone tells us of the remark made by an old sailor who said that to finish off the picture "there only wanted a grog shop by the church." Further on, the lemon trees begin to be visible. The sombre woods re-echo to the joyous, merry song of the kingfisher. As the steamer ploughs through the winding river bed, a pretty little heron or brilliant kingfisher rises with a cry of terror from the river bank, flies before us for a short distance and settles quietly down, to be scared away again in a little time. The beautiful fish hawk sits on the crest of a mangrove tree, to digest his breakfast of raw fish: he has made up his mind not to stir, and it is only when we are close upon him that he spreads his wide wings and takes to flight.

Billowy Sea of Fire.

The brilliant ibis, with its keen sense of hearing, catches the unaccustomed sound from afar, and springing up from the mud, where it is enjoy