201 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Sept. 1, 1867. 



ignorant of the name whereby it was called, yet he 

 knew where to fetch it. To be short, this herbe he 

 stamped, and gave the juice of it unto the patient to 

 drinke, and outwardly applied the same plaisterwise, 

 and in very short space perfectly cured the man, and 

 staied the rest of his body from further corruption, 

 which was ready to fall into a leprosie " ! Perhaps a 

 little judicious " puffing " would elevate our little 

 Fluellin into a post of honour equally dignified with 

 Parr's Life Pills and Holloway's Ointment ; at any 

 rate, here is a testimonial to its "vertues," equal, if 

 not superior, to any produced in favour of the above- 

 named compounds. 



Before quitting our Toadflaxes, we would just 

 direct attention to a very remarkable malformation 

 which they occasionally present. This form is 

 termed peloria ; and in it the mouth of the blossom 

 is closed up, while instead of one spur, there are 

 from two to five : the stamens also are sometimes 

 five in number, and the corolla becomes tubular. 

 It appears to have been first noticed in Linaria 

 vulgaris, in which species it is rare ; but modifica- 

 tions of it have been observed in Linaria repens, 

 Linaria minor, Linaria Elatine, and Linaria spuria. 

 Mr. Holland writes that the two last are "very 

 common on the oolitic clays of the Cotteswold 

 Hills around Cirencester, and are both very prone 

 there to have peloria flowers." It is said that the 

 roots of this form, in Linaria vulgaris, if planted in 

 rich soil, will produce blossoms in which the peloria 

 appearance is retained ; but in poor soil, they 

 return to the normal appearance. Blossoms are 

 occasionally found with two or three spurs, although 

 otherwise of the usual form. B. 



THE MAPLE. APHIS. T 



TTAVLNG had communications on this subject, 

 it will gratify some of our readers if we 

 furnish the substance of MM. Balbiani and 

 Signoret's remarks in the " Comptes Rendus " of 

 June 17th, as translated and published in the 

 " Annals of Natural History." 



" In 1852 an English naturalist, Mr. J. Thornton, 

 indicated, under the name of Phyllophorus testu- 

 dinatus, an Hemipterous insect which he had found 

 on the leaves of the common maple (Acer campestre), 

 and which he regarded as the larva of an unde- 

 termined species of aphis. Subsequently, in 1858, 

 Mr. Lane Clark also observed it, and placed it, 

 under the name of Chelymorpha phyllophora, in a 

 genus intermediate between the Aphididae and the 

 Coccidse. Lastly, in 1802, M. Van der Hoeven, of 

 Leyden, described it, also as a new genus, replacing 

 the generic names Phyllophorus and Chelymorpha 

 by that of Periphyllus, the other names being pre- 

 viously employed to designate other genera of 

 insects ; and our Hemipteron received from the 



illustrious Dutch naturalist the name of P. testudo. 

 Like Mr. Thornton, M. Van der Hoeven regarded it 

 as the larva of an aphis of which the adult form 

 was still unknown. 



"These brief historical indications form a summary 

 of all that was known about this insect when we on 

 our part undertook some investigations upon it, the 

 results of which we now propose to communicate. 

 We first ascertained that, far from constituting a 

 new genus, or even a distinct species, the Periphyllus 

 is really nothing but the larva of one of the known 

 species of Aphides which live on the maple — 

 namely, Aphis aceris, a brown species which is to be 

 met with during a great part of the year upon the 

 leaves and at the extremities of the young shoots of 

 that tree. But, at the same time that we ascertained 

 this fact, we were set on the track of a most un- 

 expected discovery, constituting a new and very 

 remarkable peculiarity in the development of the 

 animals of this group, already presenting such 

 curious phenomena in connexion with their re- 

 production. 





M 3k»:»>» 



- > «: x ' r fa 



Fig. 200. Maple Aphis (Aphis aceris;, young, magnified. 



" This was the faculty, become transmissible to all 

 the generations of a particular species, of engender- 

 ing two kinds of individuals — one normal, the other 

 abnormal — of which the former aloue, after their 

 birth, continue the course of their development, and 

 become capable of reproducing the species ; whilst 

 the latter retain throughout their existence the form 

 which they possessed on coming into the world, and 

 appear to be incapable of propagating. Moreover 

 these two categories of individuals present such 

 marked characters that, without having watched 

 their birth, and being thus convinced that they are 

 really produced by identical females, and sometimes 

 even by one and the same mother, one would 

 inevitably consider them to belong to two species, 

 nay even to two completely dill'crent genera. Now 



