, calling it, as I have heard with my own ears, a vegetable
starfish. At Woodlands happily there are other flowers enough for a
'regiment of women,' as John Knox rudely put it, and they do not grudge
the room which these noble plants occupy.

A LEGEND OF MADAGASCAR

I must not name the leading personage in this sad story. Though
twenty-five years have gone by since he met his fate, there are still
those who mourn for him. Could it be supposed that my report would come to
the knowledge of two among them, old people dwelling modestly in a small
French town, I should not publish it. For they have never heard the truth.
Those kindly and thoughtful comrades of Alcide Leboeuf--so to name
him--who transmitted the news of his death, described it as an accident.
But the French Consul at Tamatave sent a brief statement privately to the
late Mr. Cutter, of Great Russell Street, in whose employ Leboeuf was
travelling, that he might warn any future collectors.

M. Leon Humblot has told how he and his brother once entertained six
guests at Tamatave; within twelve months he alone survived. So deadly is
that climate. Alcide Leboeuf was one of the six, but he perished by the
hand of man. The poor fellow was half English by blood, and wholly English
by education. His father, I believe, stuffed birds and sold 'curiosities'
at a small shop in the East End. At an early age the boy took to
'collecting' as a business. He travelled for Mr. Cutter in various lands,
seeking rare birds and insects, and he did his work well, though subject
to fits of hard drinking from time to time.

At the shop in Great Russell Street, after a while, he made acquaintance
with that admirable collector Crossley, whose stories of Madagascar fired
his imagination. Mr. Cutter was loath to send out a man of such unsteady
character. The perils of that awful climate were not so well understood,
perhaps, twenty-five years ago, but enough was known to make an employer
hesitate. Crossley had been shipwrecked on the coast, had lived years with
the natives, learned their language, and learned also to adopt their
habits while journeying among them. But Leboeuf would not be daunted. A
giant in stature--over seven feet, they say--of strength proportionate,
not inexperienced in wild travel but never conscious of ache or pain, he
mocked at danger. When Crossley refused to take an untried man into the
swamps of Madagascar, he vowed he would go alone. That is, indeed, the