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 more revenue than the cereals. This, at least, is what the official handbook of the garden says. It may be that the famous "fever-plant" has lost some of the faith accorded to it at first. At the end of this great greenhouse there is a beautiful grotto where a little brook loses itself playing hide-and-seek among the fronds of the maiden-hair and other lovely ferns. At the right of this grotto is a reading-room where visitors may find all the current periodicals--on the left, the library of the society, rich in works upon agriculture, _zootechnie_, natural history, travels, industrial and domestic economy, etc., in several languages. The remarkable thing about this great greenhouse is the ever-flourishing, ever-perfect condition of its vegetation. Of course this effect must be secured by succursal hothouses, not always open to visitors. No tree, no plant, ever appears there in a sickly condition, but this may be said also of the animals in the gardens. I shall not soon forget a great wire canary cage some sixteen or more feet square, enclosing considerable shrubbery and scores of birds. There I received my first notion of the natural brilliancy of the plumage of these birds: its golden sheen literally dazzled the eyes.