II A R I) W I C K E'S SCI E N C E-G S S I P. 



23 



Observations on Insect Life. — Several years 

 ago, while on the " look-out " of one of our large 

 elevators, I noticed a plump spider fall upon the 

 metal roof beneath me, and a wasp darting after it, 

 immediately secured it in a sort of basket formed by 

 its legs, and then flew off with its prize. The ques- 

 tion now was, what use has the wasp for the spider ? 

 The next season following gave me an opportunity 

 of solving it. Noticing several wasps about some 

 dingy windows in an area, I concluded to watch 

 them, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing a few 

 depart with their game. I traced their destination, 

 and found it to be a number of clay structures under 

 the eaves of a neighbouring dwelling. These forma- 

 tions had numerous perforations, about which the 

 wasps busied themselves. Some time after they 

 had abandoned the neighbourhood, I gained ad- 

 mittance to the house and removed several of these 

 adobe nests. I opened one of them, and found a 

 cell containing an egg or larvae ; the cell beside it 

 was filled with spiders in a torpid state, both great 

 and small, packed closely, with their front legs 

 turned over their backs. The same order of ar- 

 rangement was observed in the balance of the nest. 

 I came to the conclusion that the spiders were 

 placed there to keep a necessary temperature for 

 the larvae. I was not satisfied, however, and began 

 a search among various authors, until Darwin, in 

 his " Researches," set me right, by describing " cer- 

 tain wasp-like insects which construct in the coiners 

 of verandahs, clay cells for their larvae. These cells 

 they stuff full of half-dead spiders and caterpillars, 

 which they seem wonderfully to know how to sting 

 to that degree as to leave them paralyzed until 

 their eggs are hatched, and the larva; feed on this 

 horrid mass of powerless, half-killed victims." I 

 might go on and relate instances of the courage and 

 ingenuity of the garden spider, but a fear that I am 

 encroaching on your valuable space forbids it. I 

 will close by giving another instance of the useful- 

 ness of observations of iusect life. A Scotch 

 mathematician, in measuring the angles of a bee 

 cell, discovered an error in a table of logarithms 

 " sufficiently great to have occasioned the loss of a 

 ship at sea, whose captain happened to use a copy 

 of the same logarithmic tables for calculating his 

 longitude."— 27. W. Bleyer, Buffalo, N. Y. 



Curious Wood. — To such a height did the 

 fondness of the Romans for curious wood carry 

 them at one period of their history, that their 

 tables were more expensive than the jewels of their 

 ladies. — Sylva Florifera. 



North London Naturalists' Club. — We are 

 requested to state that the notice, which recently 

 appeared in Nature, as to the closing of the North 

 London Naturalists' Club, is entirely untrue. The 

 Club continues its meetings on the fourth Thursday 

 in the month, at Myddelton Hall, Islington. 



Lime Deposit in Boilers (p. 2S1). — This well- 

 known evil consists of calcium carbonate (carbonate 

 of lime) : The formation of such a crust may be 

 checked, if not avoided, by adding a small quantity 

 of sal-ammoniac to the water, soluble calcium chlo- 

 ride, and volatile ammonium, carbonate being 

 formed. See Roscoc's "Elementary Chemistrv," 

 p. 176— G. II. II. 



Vulcanite Cells (page 282).— If "R. II. M." 

 will rub the part of the cell to be attached to the 

 slide on a file or a piece of sandstone to take off 

 the glossy surface, I think he will succeed in 

 fixing them with marine glue. The same course 

 should also be taken with the top of cell, to make the 

 cement which holds the cover-glass firmly adhere. — 

 E. G., Matlock. 



Tiie Fungus Theory.—" Mr. Erasmus Wilson 

 watches with amazed curiosity the progress of the 

 fungus theory. It began, he says, with the dermo- 

 phytes and nosophytes of Gruby; he disbelieved it ; 

 and disbelieves it still, although it has since in- 

 truded itself into almost every known disease of 

 the body ; at first there was a struggle for the dis- 

 tinction of genera and species. Every philosopher 

 had his pet fungus. There was the fungus of 

 Schonlein and the fungus of Audouiu. A new 

 order of knighthood seemed to have been created 

 throughout Christendom, and every knight in Europe 

 proclaimed his own parliculur fungus as the love- 

 liest fungus of them all. Then a new school of 

 philosophers declared that the difference amongst 

 the various fungi was only a difference of their 

 habitat ; and that the same fungus transplanted to 

 different beds exhibited those differences which un- 

 observant, or too acutely observant, philosophers 

 mistook for other species. Then, when the outside 

 man was exhausted, the inside mau came in with its 

 discoveries. There were fungi for aphthae, fungi 

 for diphtheria, fungi for cholera; aud, last and not 

 least, we have fungi for internal cysts, fungi for 

 syphilis, and fungi for gonorrhoea. This last ab- 

 surdity completes the measure. ' Fungi,' says Mr. 

 Wilson, 'are the morbid development of the natural 

 components of the cell-structure of the economy ; 

 and just, as pus is the product of the nuclei of the 

 cell-tissue, just as mucus is equally a product of the 

 normal constituents of the cells of the epithelium, 

 and, being produced, enjoys the property of proli- 

 feration and growth ; so these presumed and omni- 

 present fungi are the gatherers up of waste and 

 exhausted organic matter, and' are ready to be 

 found wherever waste and exhaustion of organiza- 

 tion prevail. Twenty years ago we taught the 

 nature and relations of fungous life to all who chose 

 to give heed ; twenty years have passed away, and 

 modern science has not come up to the standard 

 which we then established.' "—British Medical 

 Journal, April 4, 1SG8. 



