17i 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



of nuclei in epithelial cells covering apportion of 

 the tail where blood-stasis had occurred, in conse- 

 quence of a minute puncture purposely made before 

 incarcerating the reptile. He suggested that this 

 change was doubtless the visible exponent of that 

 pathological alteration of the circumjacent cellular 

 elements which constitutes such an important 

 although as yet imperfectly understood factor in 

 the inflammatory process. 



THE OLDEST INSECT-TRAPS ON 

 RECORD. 



THOUGH generally a kindly mother to the 

 insect population, offering them an abun- 

 dance of food and shelter, the goddess Flora has a 

 dark side to her character ; and apt though we are 

 to associate with her all that is smiling and cheer- 

 ful, she helps largely to thin the ranks of the little 

 creatures which come to rifle her treasures. 

 There are the moulds, par exemple, such as 

 Empusin-i,* which appears in the autumn as a tiny 

 cloud of white dust surrounding some unhappy 

 fly, which with outstretched legs looks as if it were 

 glued to the window-pane ; or as Botnjtis hassiana, 

 commonly called Muscadine, which works such 

 havoc among the silk-worms of Italy and Erance. 

 Another insect-slaying fungus is the singular Cor- 

 diceps or Torrubia, which attacks its victim at the 

 back of the head and grows up into a club-shaped 

 stem, the lower part ramifying through the insect's 

 body, until "the whole insect seems entirely 

 metamorphosed into vegetable, with the exception 

 of the skin and intestines." (Dr. Hooker, 

 Journal of Botany, lSn).t Among the higher 

 forms of vegetaljle destroyers we find the well- 

 . known Venus's fly-trap (Dionaea), which crushes 

 its prey in an embrace of death ; its relatives, the 

 Sundews, which suck the life out of a fly or ant by 

 means of the glutinous threads on their leaves ; and 

 all plants with viscid stems or with hairs pointing 

 downwards in corolla or pouch, allowing entrance 

 but forbidding exit to the deluded insect, of which 

 the American Darlingtonia is a notable example. 

 Then there are the curious Pitcher-plants and the 

 Saddle-Howers (Sarraceuia) and the Cephalotuses 

 and others, whose leaves are so fashioned as to 

 form at the apex deep jars, into which flies and 

 moths innumerable are seduced by the pleasant 

 fluid at the bottom, only to meet a watery grave. 

 These " gay deceivers," however, are all of recent 



* Cohn named this (supposed) genus Empusn, meaning- a 

 spectre ; but that title liad been already appropriated by 

 lUiger to a family of Orthopters, allied to the Praying Insect 

 [Mantix] ; whereupon the fungus was rechristened Einpu- 

 sina; and also Sporendoneiiiu hy Desmarest. 



t For an interesting account of this fungus and its mode 

 of action, see Science-Gossip, 1866, p. 127. 



types. To find the oldest fly-trap we must go back 

 to the old prehistoric times, when insects had 

 nothing to fear from man's acquisitiveness, for the 

 simple reason that man did not then exist ; or, if 

 he did perhaps walk the earth, his intellect was of 

 the lowest, and collections and museums were un- 

 dreamt of. I allude to the days when amber was 

 forming, and vagrant insects were being daily en- 

 tangled in its viscid toils, and there preserved for 

 the wonder and admiration of modern savants. 



Amber is a semi-transparent substance of a light 

 yellow or brown colour, capable of taking a high 

 polish, and therefore much employed in the manu- 

 facture of mouth-pieces to pipes, heads of canes, 

 necklace-beads, and such small matters. The prin- 

 cipal source of supply is (and has been from time 

 immemorial) the coast of the Baltic Sea between 

 Memel and Dantzic, where it is [disseminated with 

 layers of lignite in the sand or clay. It is searched 

 for in the sea or on the shore, or is picked from the 

 cliffs with iron hooks at the end of long poles, or it 

 is regularly mined, the shafts being sometimes 

 sunk to the depth of one hundred and fifty feet. 

 Saxony supplies a small quantity ; it also occurs 

 in Sicily, in Siberia, Sweden, Italy, and other parts 

 of Europe. Amber occurs in varying quantities, in 

 nodules or nuggets of different sizes, sometimes as 

 small as grains of coarse sand, at others of much 

 larger proportions. One of the largest pieces on 

 record is deposited in the Museum of Minerals at 

 Berlin. This great mass, which measures upwards 

 of thirteen inches in length, eight inches broad, and 

 four to six inches thick, with a weight of over 

 thirteen pounds, was found near Gumbinen, in 

 Eastern Prussia, in the year 1803. The fortunate 

 possessor received for his prize one thousand 

 thalers, or £150 ; it real value however far exceeds 

 that sum. 



There is no doubt of amber having a vegetable 

 origin. It is, in fact, a resinous exudation from an 

 old-world pine-tree, which has long since died out 

 from the earth, nmnedihY Go^'gtYi Pinites succinlfer. 

 Pinites was closely allied to our modern spruce ; 

 consequently amber is in its nature exactly ana- 

 logous to the lumps of resin which occur in every 

 fir plantation in the present day. Indeed, if any- 

 thing were wanting to prove its originally fluid 

 condition, it would be the fact that debris of various 

 kinds are frequently found embedded in it. Erag- 

 ments of the flowers, leaves, and twigs of more 

 than one hundred and sixty species of plants have 

 been detected by the indefatigable Goppert 

 [Lennis Botanik). But it .is as an insect-trap that 

 I introduce it here. In examining a piece of amber, 

 one is often struck with the fact that these little 

 creatures, or portions of them, are scattered through 

 the mass in every possible position. I have before 

 me at this moment a piece about two inches 

 square and of moderate thickness, which is crowded 



