dgment. Moreover, what
suits the plant suits also the insects which feed upon it. And if there be
rats in the neighbourhood they soon discover that there is snug lying
against the pipes, behind the wall of stone. Anxious mothers find it the
ideal spot for a nursery. I cannot learn, however, that they do any wanton
damage, beyond nipping off a few old leaves to make their beds, which is
no serious injury. I have rats in my own cool house. Many years ago, on
their first arrival probably, an Odontoglossum bulb was eaten up.
Doubtless that was an experiment which did not prove satisfactory, for it
has never been repeated. However, rats and insects can be kept down, if
not exterminated.

The Cymbidiums here were rough pieces, odds and ends, consigned to this
house to live or die. Now they are grand plants, in the way to become
'specimens,' set among ferns and creepers on a lofty wall of tufa, the
base of which is clothed with Tradescantia and Ficus repens. In front and
on one side are banks of tufa planted with Masdevallias, Lycastes, Laelia
harpophylla, and so forth.

STORY OF COELOGYNE SPECIOSA

Orchid stories lack one essential quality of romance. They have little of
the 'female interest,' and nothing of love. The defect is beyond remedy, I
fear--collectors are men of business. It is rumoured, indeed, that
personages of vast weight in the City could tell romantic adventures of
their own, if they would. So, perhaps, could my heroes. But neither do
tell willingly. I have asked in vain. However, among my miscellaneous
notes on Orchidology, it is recorded that 'W. C. Williams found Coelogyne
speciosa up the Baram River. Books confine its habitat to Java and
Sumatra.' The Baram is in Borneo. When travelling in that island thirty
years ago I heard a story of Williams' doings, and I think I can recall
the outline. But imagination furnishes the details, of course, aided by
local knowledge.

It may be worth while to tell briefly how this gentleman came to be
wandering in Borneo--in the Sultan's territory also--at a date when Rajah
Brooke had but just begun to establish order in his own little province.
Williams' position or business I never heard. Some Dutch firm sold or
entrusted to him a stock of earthenware jars made in Holland, facsimiles
of those precious objects cherished by the Dyaks. The speculation was much
favoured in that day--it seemed such in easy cut to fortune. But they say
that not a solitary Dyak was e