In his _Theatrum Botanicum_ Parkinson describes the "Scythian Lamb," and one gathers that he accepted the travellers' tales about it. "This strange living plant as it is reported by divers good authors groweth among the Tartares about Samarkand and the parts thereabouts rising from a seede somewhat bigger and rounder than a Melon seede with a stalk about five palmes high without any leafe thereon but onely bearing a certaine fruit and the toppe in forme resembling a small lambe, whose coate or rinde is woolly like unto a Lambe's skinne, the pulp or meat underneath, which is like the flesh of a Lobster, having it is sayed blood also in it; it hath the forme of an head hanging down and feeding on the grasse round about it untill it hath consumed it and then dyeth or else will perish if the grasse round about it bee cut away of purpose. It hath foure legges also hanging downe. The wolves much affect to feed on them." The preface to the _Paradisus_ is singularly beautiful, being typical of the simple, devout-minded author, but it is too long to quote. The book itself is truly "a speaking garden," a tranquil, spacious Elizabethan garden, full of the loveliness, colour and scent of damask, musk and many other roses; of lilies innumerable--the crown imperial, the gold and red lilies, the Persian lily ("brought unto Constantinople and from thence sent unto us by Mr. Nicholas Lete, a worthy Merchant and a lover of all faire flowers"), the blush Martagon, the bright red Martagon of Hungary and the lesser mountain lily. Of fritillaries of every sort--of which Parkinson tells us that "although divers learned men do by the name given unto this delightful plant think it doth in some things partake with a Tulipe or Daffodill; yet I, finding it most like unto a little Lilly, have (as you see here) placed it next unto the Lillies and before them." Of gay tulips, which were amongst his special favourites--"But indeed this flower, above many other, deserveth his true commendations and acceptance with all lovers of these beauties, both for the stately aspect and for the admirable varietie of colour, that daily doe arise in them,"--and of which he had a collection such as would be the glory of any garden--the tulip of Caffa, the greater red Bolonia tulip, the tulip of Candie, the tulip of Armenia, the Fool's Coat tulip, the Cloth of Silver tulip and others too numerous to mention. ("They are all now made denizens in our Gardens," he joyously tells us, "where they yield us more delight and more increase for their proportion by reason of their culture, than they did unto their owne naturals"). Of daffodils, crocuses and hyacinths in boundless profusion, amongst which are to be noted many pleasing names that we no longer use. Of asphodels, "which doe grow naturally in Spaine and France and from thence were first brought unto us to furnish our Gardens." Of many-coloured flags, which he calls by the prettier name of "flower de luce," and amongst which