HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



195 



Gallery, by Thomas Donaldson. To ethnologists 

 this volume has therefore an unusual value. 



Handy Guide to Norway, Second ed., by Thomas 

 B. Willson (London : Ed. Stanford). Mr. Willson's 

 excellent guide to a now much visited country has 

 been thoroughly revised and enlarged. It may be 

 too late to visit Norway this year, but those who 

 think of going next summer should obtain this handy 

 book. It is abundantly illustrated with maps, and 

 the notes on botany and fishing, &c, make it un- 

 usually valuable. 



My Microscope, by a Quekett Club Man (London : 

 Roper and Drowley). A charmingly-written and 

 artistic little book, designed to be an " Introduction 

 to the study of the Infinitely Little." This is the 

 second edition, showing how well the first was 

 appreciated by the rapidity with which it has gone 

 off. 



British Reptiles, by C. C. Hopley (London : Swan 

 Sonnenschein). This is another shilling volume of 

 "The Young Collector" series, whose chief value 

 consists in each having been entrusted to the person 

 best fitted to write it. Nobody will doubt Miss 

 Hopley's fitness — this little book includes the 

 Batrachians. 



The Transactions of the Leeds Geological Associa- 

 tion, Part 3, contains some excellent papers by 

 Mr. Thomas Tate, Professor McAll, W. Cheetham, 

 C. Brownridge, Professor Green, &c, and some well- 

 written accounts of geological excursions made in the 

 district. 



Transactions Chichester and West Sussex A r atural 

 History Society, has papers by the Rev. C. D. Ash, 

 Rev. F. II. Arnold (" Phyto-Geography of the 

 South Coast "), Rev. J. Fraser, Dr. Paxton, and Mr. 

 Joseph Anderson, jun. 



The Westmoreland Note-Book and Natural History 

 Record, is devoted to local topography, biography 

 and antiquarianisms ; it also contains local ornitho- 

 logical, botanical, and geological papers. 



Transactions Hertfordshire Natural History Society, 

 vol. iv. part 8, is devoted to accounts of various 

 field meetings, held in different parts of the county. 



The eleventh annual report of the Hackney Micro- 

 scopical and Natural History Society, contains abstracts 

 of papers read, and shows the Society to be in a very 

 healthy state. 



ROSE PESTS. 

 Hemiftera. 



SOME conversation upon certain rose insects, 

 which took place at a recent meeting of 

 gardeners, has induced me to refer to the subject in 

 these pages, in the hope that the matter I have to 

 bring forward may be useful to the large number of 

 persons who peruse these pages, many of whom, no 



doubt, are more or less interested in the cultivation of 

 these beautiful flowers. 



Perhaps the worst insect enemies of the rose are 

 the various species of aphides, green fly, or smother 

 flies, as they are variously called. G. B. Buckton, 

 F.R.S., in his excellent monograph published by the 

 Ray Society, gives five species as infesting various 

 species or varieties of rose. The most common of 

 these are Siphonophora rosce and S. rosarum, but for 

 all practical purposes they may all be treated as one 

 species. No gardener needs be told of their hurtful 

 properties, clustering round the buds and tender 

 branches, and sucking the juices of the plant by 

 inserting the rostrum through the tender bark. The 

 rate of increase of these insects is something prodigious, 

 and unless a check is put upon them as soon as they 

 appear in the spring, they soon become so numerous 

 as to render any remedial measures almost hopeless. 

 In common with other aphides, the rose aphis has 

 several natural enemies, and these at all times should 

 be encouraged. The most observable, perhaps, being 

 the various kinds of hovering flies (Syrphida?), those 

 two-winged insects with bodies banded black and 

 yellow, and which may be seen in sunny weather 

 flying about the garden and poising motionless every 

 now and then before some object, especially a 

 composite flower, but darting off with lightning speed, 

 if disturbed, to poise again in another place. These 

 deposit eggs among the aphides, and the grubs which 

 hatch from them are legless, broad behind and 

 tapering gradually to the head. They feed upon the 

 green flies, as do also the various kinds of lady-bird 

 beetles (Coccinellidse) and their larva?. In the case 

 of a tree which grows in such a position that it 

 cannot readily be examined, it is a good plan to 

 collect a quantity of these latter insects and place 

 them upon it. The rose aphis has, however, another 

 enemy, perhaps more destructive than either of the 

 above, in the shape of a very minute metallic fly 

 (Aphidius cancellatus) which deposits its eggs in the 

 aphides, the larva? feeding within. This fly is so 

 small that it is seldom seen at large, but the dried 

 carcases of the victimised insects may be readily 

 observed fixed upon the rose leaves, and if collected 

 and placed in a glass-topped box the parasites may be 

 bred from them. Near to woods perhaps also the 

 larva? of some of the lace-winged flies (Hemerobiida?) 

 do their share in aphis destruction. These larva? may 

 readily be distinguished from those of the hovering 

 flies in the fact that they have six legs on the front 

 segments, and some of the species make a cloak of the 

 aphis skins which is carried upon the back. Every 

 rose grower should make himself thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with all these insects, and with judicious 

 care and proper selection, they will help him greatly 

 in his work. 



Among the artificial remedies employed for the 

 destruction of these numerous pests, it will only be 

 necessary to mention two. The first is that recom- 



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