The Florida agriculturist., 1889-01-02

graveIy declared that the Spanish ladies
could dance and dance all night, and yet
remain perfectly immovableW
A rather paredoXical saying, which, be-
ing translated, meant that they never
showed fatigue or wear and tear after
hours OF dancing.
So the orchids birds fly and fly all the
day long, and yet remain perfectly i'm
movable, so far as wandering from their
anchorage is concerned with one of them
we have already made acquaintance, the
awesome Espiritu Santo, but besides this
beautiful dove, there are oh woeful con-
trast! eagles, pelicans, cranes, swans and
many others, nor does this list end the
story of the orchids raid into the king
dom of the birds; from all appearances
we shrewdly suspect that this queer
family intended to steal still more full
fedged bird forms, bus were caught in
the act" and fled in hot haste, snatching
up, and dOnning as they sailed away, a
motley assortment of whatever they
could lay their hands upon, beaks and
wings, tails, heads and stray feathers, for
certain it is that among the orchids
family are many whose entire dress and
shape bears a close resemblance to these
detached fragments, and to nothing else
under the SUM-
Surely nothing but a confused flight
from the bird kingdom can account for
these ''fragmentary epistles' of it's sub
iects, unless we choose to attribute them
to "queer streak" of dame nature her
self
Coming now to the animal world, we
find the saucy orchids have by no means
spared their mimicry in their midst, and
although they have not drawn upon them
SO heavily as upon the birds, still we find
plenty of leopards, tigers, lynxes, rams,
bulls and monkeys, and a few of the i'm
pudent little fellows have actually had
the hardihood to mimic the form of man
himself!
They have hunted down among the
reptiles too, for among them are numer4
GUS lizards, snakes, toads and frogs they
might have shown better tastct,in this
matter, but then, what are they, if not
eccentric? AS an oldwoman once said to
the writer's grandmother, "ah, ma am
we all have our Queerities p and surely
the orchids are full of them, just as full
as some people are, albeit unconsciously.
Nor have they failed to visit the sea-
Shore and lay it's varied shell-shapes
under contribution and then as to mis-
cellaneous articles,-why, the motley
collection is worse, infinitely worse, than
the small boys famous pocket!
Glance moment at the list of divers
objects that they have either copied
accurately, or so cunningly caricatured
that no one could fail to trace the re-
semblance at glance, the list, under
stand, is genuine one, no humbug about
it,
Masks and coWls, hoods, helmets and
caps, whiskers, eyelashes, bristles, tails,
long flowing boards, teeth and horns,
7ssase easnhs, hnckets. slippers and saddles, and
nondescrfpts. --L sz-a--------l---es.ee int int:
Now, would not any reasonable person
suppose that this lunatic race OF flowers
might well be satisfied with these exploits
in mimicry?
But no! it is not enough in their eyes
that their blossoms should have the
monopoly of eccentricity, they carry on
their rage for mimicry, literally, down to
the very ''root of the matter, for even
their pseudo-bulbs are fashioned into the
likeness of onions, cucumbers, palms,
bamboos, tongues, mousetails, hooks,
whips, swords, needles, cushions and
straps, and some of their roots are en-
cased in coral, or it's semblance; OF the
leaves, some are inscribed in Arabic
characters, but all the same we suspect it.
would puzzle the Arabic scribe to inter-
pret them.
TO BErCONTINUED.
bly, drops the superfuous letters SAC, leaving the,
modern WOrd-OrchideR,