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He finally rejected Darwin's theory that colours "have been developed by the preference of the females, the more ornamented males becoming the parents of each successive generation." Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. April 15, 1868. My dear Wallace, I have been deeply interested by your admirable article on Birds' Nests.

These heights were thronged with natives, who had collected from the numerous villages that ornamented the cliffs situated among groves of plantains; they were armed with spears and shields; the population ran parallel to our line of march, shouting and gesticulating as though daring us to cross the river.

Of these, the washing department only brought with it its insignia and badge of office. This was an enormous smoothing-iron, highly ornamented with brass, decorated with Gothic apertures, and made to contain an amount of charcoal that would have kept an entire family warm in the coldest depths of winter.

In this order and still, in his earnest inspection, holding his candle very close to the guest; now making him feel extremely warm about the legs, now threatening to set his wig on fire, and constantly begging his pardon with great awkwardness and embarrassment John led the party to the best bedroom, which was nearly as large as the chamber from which they had come, and held, drawn out near the fire for warmth, a great old spectral bedstead, hung with faded brocade, and ornamented, at the top of each carved post, with a plume of feathers that had once been white, but with dust and age had now grown hearse-like and funereal.

It was heavily carpeted, and, for a place of its character, richly furnished. The walls were windowless, the light being shed down from twelve heavily ornamented electroliers, each containing a cluster of thirty lamps.

Loafers, women, and children had collected on the drying pavements, and a window just opposite Constance was ornamented with the entire family of the landlord of the Sun Vaults. In the great bar of the Vaults a barman was craning over the pitchpine screen that secured privacy to drinkers.

Hermann saw two footmen carry out in their arms the bent form of the old lady, wrapped in sable fur, and immediately behind her, clad in a warm mantle, and with her head ornamented with a wreath of fresh flowers, followed Lizaveta. The door was closed. The carriage rolled away heavily through the yielding snow. The porter shut the street-door; the windows became dark.

The women are ornamented with beads, and fond of painting themselves; the men also paint, even to excess, both their faces and shirts: their favourite colour is red. The women generally cultivate the ground, and the men are all fishermen and canoe makers. Upon the whole, I never met any nation that were so simple in their manners as these people, or had so little ornament in their houses.

It is still inhabited, and part of it is used for district offices, but there is little of archæological interest in city or castle. In the courtyard is a well on a platform ornamented with stone balls to which twelve steps ascend, a rather curious arrangement.

Imagine my surprise and disappointment on wiping off some of the dirt to find it nothing but coarse crockery, somewhat resembling queensware, ornamented with blue enameled figures such as decorate old preserve-jars at home.