rising cloud, and remarked to him, "Well, deacon,
I hope our petition may be answered." He received only a snort of wrath
and defiance in reply. Rather puzzled as to what had vexed his
parishioner, Dr. Peters said blandly, "You heard my prayer for a shower,
Deacon Smith?" The deacon turned grimly: "I heard you mention the matter
of rain, Dr. Peters, but, good Heavens, sir! _you should have insisted
upon it!_"

A.T.

THE JARDIN D'ACCLIMATATION OF PARIS.

This beautiful garden, one of the most attractive places in the world,
was established in the Bois de Boulogne in 1860. It was in the most
flourishing condition at the time of the breaking out of the war with
Germany. That war nearly ruined it. During the siege elephants and other
valuable animals were sacrificed for food. The carrier-pigeons that did
such noble service during the siege were mostly raised in this
establishment, and those that survived the war are kept there and most
tenderly preserved. "Many died gloriously on the field of honor," as we
read in the records of the society, which preserve a full account of
their wonderful feats. Some of them again and again dared the Prussian
lines, carrying those precious microscopic despatches photographed upon
pellicles of collodion--so light that the whole one hundred and fifteen
thousand received during the siege do not weigh over one gramme, a
little over fifteen grains!

The great greenhouse of these gardens for plants that cannot endure a
temperature lower than two degrees below zero centigrade (28.4 deg. Fahr.)
would enchant even the most indifferent observer. The building itself is
one of the finest structures of its kind. It was once the property of
the Lemichez Brothers, celebrated florists at Villiers, at which place
it was known as the Palais des Flors. The Acclimatation Society
purchased it in 1861, and every winter since then there has been a
magnificent and unfailing display of flowers there. Masses of camellias,
rhododendrons, azaleas, primroses, _bruyeres_, pelargoniums constantly
succeed each other. These are merely to delight the visitors, the great
object of the hothouse being to nurse foreign plants and experiment with
them. Among the rare ones are the paper-plant of the _Aralia_ family;
the _Chamaerops_, or hemp-plant; the _Phormium tenax_, or New Zealand
flax; and the _Eucalyptus_ of Australia, that wonderful tree introduced
lately into Algeria, where it grows six metres a year, and yields m