220 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



iu England, good white and wliolesome bread was 

 made of boiled turnips, deprived of their moisture 

 by pressure, and then kneaded with an equal 

 quantity of wheaten flour ; thus forming what was 

 called turnip-bread. The scarcity of corn in 1693 

 obliged the poor people of Essex again to have 

 recourse to this species of food. In the present 

 day swede turnips are sometimes employed to 

 manufacture a fictitious " orange marmalade," and 

 from the quantity of sugar the roots of this order 

 contain, a liquid is manufactured from them which 

 is said to be used in adulterating light wines. The 

 turnip crop not unfrequently suffers from a fungus 

 of the botrytis kind {B. parasitica), allied to that 

 which some suppose causes potato disease. It 

 infests plants of rank growth, attacking their roots, 

 which are weakened by the too great luxuriance of 

 the leaves. Plants during dry seasons are liable to 

 a form of white mould, a species of Oidiuni, which 

 attacks the leaves and renders the plant almost 

 worthless — Aubury, or fingers-and-toes, by which 

 large excrescences are produced on the bulbs, and 

 in a short time the whole root becomes in a state of 

 putrefaction : it used to be considered to proceed 

 from the formation of an insect in the tap-root ; but 

 Stevenson, in the "Book of the Farm," states that 

 all such diseases are occasioned by the poverty of 

 the soil, and that this disease is not so prevalent as 

 it was fifty years ago, because the culture of the 

 turnip is better understood, and the ground is 

 manured with greater liberality. 



According to the agricultural returns of Great 

 Britain for 1S73, the number of acres under turnip- 

 cultivation amounted to 2,121,908, and there was 

 more land under turnips and swedes in 1S73 than in 

 1872 by 38,000 acres; but the average of these crops 

 was not equal to what it was in the years from 1868 

 to 1871. In "London Labour and London 

 Poor " it is calculated that about 32,000,000 of 

 turnips arc anually sold in the metropolis. 



Pearhaui pictures the month of November with 

 a bunch of parsnips and turnips in his hand, and 

 Guilum says these vegetables were used in armorial 

 bearings, to represent a person of good disposition 

 who relieved the poor. 



H. G. Glasspoole. 



NOTES ON THE LEAP-ROLLERS. 



rpHE caterpillars of Lepidoptcra, seeking pro- 

 -*- tection by means of habitations constructed 

 of the leaves of tbeir food-plant, are to be found 

 more especially in the tribe of Tortrices, or leaf- 

 twisters. The form of the cell is not always 

 similar, some insects rolling the leaf from the tip 

 toward the stem ; others making a division in the 

 edge, and thus only employing a part; whilst others 

 spin ths edges together, employing one or more 

 leaves for the purpose. 



Although the greater number of the leaf-rollers 

 are to be found iu the smaller tribes of moths, or 

 Micro-lepidoptera, yet some of the larger species 

 are also endued with the same habit, -and among 

 them one or two of the butterflies. To any one 

 who has not tried it, the difficulty of rolling a stifi" 

 leaf, like that of the laurel or oak, is scarcely 

 appreciable. To such small creatures as eater- 



Fig. 151. Red Admiral [Pyyameis A'.ulantti). Upper side. 



pillars the difficulty would seem insurmountable, 

 and the manner in which it is got over by the 

 insect is very interesting. The caterpillar fust 

 spins a single thread, beginning from the tip, and 

 fastening off about the centre of the leaf another, 



Fig. 152. Ditto (underside). 



and then another, until it has a row. This done, 

 it goes over them again, tightening them, and 

 fixing them down. Thus, slowly but surely, the 

 leaf is bent to the required form, and the architect 

 takes possession of its home. It is not to be ex- 

 pected that a house on which so much time and 

 patience bas been expended is to be used for any 

 feeding purposes, and thus the leaf-rolling larva; 

 only lice between the spun leaves, making nocturnal 

 rambles in search of food, and never failing to find 

 their way back by means of a guide-line of silk 

 thread. 



