The why and wherefore of the colors of birds' eggs, says Ernest Ingersoll, has been a favorite theme for speculation, from the quaint surmisings of Sir Thomas Browne to the solemn guess-work of Shufeldt, in his ten "biological laws explanatory of the variation in color of the shells of the eggs in class Aves."* Hewitson piously concludes that the beauty of these elegant and often exquisitely attractive objects is intended for the delight of human eyes; hence, as he says, eggs simply white are put out of sight in holes! He also sees in the larger number of eggs laid by game-birds a provision by a benevolent Providence for the joy of the sportsman and the delectation of the epicure. Next comes a man who assures us that the colors of eggs are due to the influence of their respective surroundings on the imagination of the hen birds--the old story of Jacob's little trick on Laban in the matter of young cattle. This school instances as an example the red blotches prevalent on the eggs of falcons, regarded by it as a record of the bloody experiences of the parents; but it does not explain why the equally rapacious owls produce pure white eggs, or the blood-thirsty skuas and shrikes lay greenish ones. Other equally fallacious theorizings might be noted. [Illustration: FROM KOEHLER'S MEDICINAL-PFLANZEN. TEA. CHICAGO: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER.] Explanation of plate: _A_, flowering branch, nearly natural size; 1, flower in section; 2, stamen; 3, ovary in transverse section; 4, pistil; 5 and 6, fruit, with seed; 7, seed; 8, seed in sections. TEA. _Camellia Thea Link_. DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER, Northwestern University School of Pharmacy. The gentle fair on nervous tea relies, Whilst gay good nature sparkles in her eyes. --_Crabbe_: "Inebriety." The highly esteemed drink referred to in the above lines is made from the leaves and very young terminal branches of a shrub known as _Camellia Thea_. The shrub is spreading, usually two or three meters high, though it may attain a height of nine or ten meters. It has smooth, dark-green, alternate, irregularly serrate-dentate, lanceolate to obovate, blunt-pointed, simple leaves. The young leaves and branches are woolly owing to the presence of numerous hair-cells. The flowers are perfect, solitary or in twos and threes in the axils of the leaves. They are white and rather showy. Some authors state that they are fragrant, while others state that they are practically odorless. Stamens are numerous. The ovary is three-celled, with one seed in each cell, which is about the size of a cherry seed.