HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



155 



Italy whole fields of this plant are cultivated; so 

 great is the demand in some parts of the latter 

 country, that there is scarcely a dinner served up in 

 which it does not in some way or other form a part. 

 In England, the plant is more cultivated than for- 

 merly, and there has been of late an importation of 

 this vegetable from the United States, preserved in 

 tins. In a course of an extensive series of chemical 

 experiments on plants by E. Solby, he found that 

 the leaves and stems of the Tomato contained nitric 

 acid. It is stated in the " Gardener's Magazine " 

 vol. x. (1834), that Tomato buds may be grafted on 

 potatoes, and plants thus treated produce good 

 crops of both vegetables. 



The old European botanists wrote the name of 

 this plant Tumatle. The Spaniards and Portuguese 

 call them Tomates, which appears to be the original 

 Peruvian appellation; and in Mexico this and several 

 plants of the Solatium genus are called Tomatles. 



There are several varieties of Tomatoes known by 

 the form and colour of their fruit. Duval, in his 

 "Natural History of the Soianum," notices their 

 distinctive characteristics, and describes each as a 

 distinct species ; but it is believed that they can all 

 be referred to a common type, viz., the large To- 

 mato, with deeply-divided, rough, hairy leaves and 

 clusters of yellow flowers, succeeded by large lobed 

 fruit of an orange red or scarlet colour when ripe. 

 Dr. B. Seemann, in his " Plora Vitiensis," or the 

 description of plants in the Fiji Islands, mentions 

 Solarium anthropophagorum (the cannabaPs Toma- 

 to), called Bogo-dina, being one of the plants which 

 Fijians cultivate very near Bure-ni-sa, or stranger's 

 house, where the bodies of the slain iu battle are 

 always taken to be feasted with the fruit of this 

 plant, and from which it appears that savages some- 

 times require a relish with their disgusting food. 



H. G. Glasspoole. 



NOTES ON THE DIPTERA. 

 V. — The Asiltdm. 



O INCE one of the objects of these papers is to 

 ^ call attention to certain flies just at the sea- 

 son when one may expect to find them, the families 

 described are necessarily taken out of their natural 

 position. Thus the Asllidce have but little connec- 

 tion with the Muscidce, though they have points of 

 resemblance to the Bombylidce and Tabanidce, pre- 

 viously described. They diverge from the ordinary 

 types of British diptera, and the connecting links 

 are found only in hot climates. They are the 

 largest of all the diptera except the Midasidce, 

 and any oiie visiting the British Museum 

 may obtain an idea of the largeness and ferocious 

 appearance of some of the exotic species from a few 

 specimens which are there exhibited. 

 The Asilidce may be at once recognized by their 



mouths, which will be presently described. Five 

 genera occur in this country. Two of these, being 

 uncommon, are not likely to be met with : the other 

 three, Asilus, Leptogaster, and Dioctria, may be 

 distinguished as follows : — The feet of Leptogaster 

 have no onychia {i.e. pads), while the other two 

 genera have them well developed. In the wings of 

 the genus Asilus the sub- costal and radial veins 

 unite just before meeting the margin of the wing. 

 (See so and r, fig. 87.) In these two genera the 

 antennae are small, but in the genus Dioctria they 

 are unusually large, as fig. 93 will show. 



The first genus, Asilus, is the type genus of the 

 family. Its finest species, A. crabroniformis, is 

 much the strongest of the British diptera, and, 

 except one or two Tabani, the largest. The male 

 is fully an inch long, and the female, of which a 

 drawing is given at lig. 85, is about one-tenth of an 

 inch longer. The breadth across the expanded 

 wings varies from one inch and a half to one inch 

 and three-quarters. Though not very common, 

 where it is to be found it often occurs in large 

 numbers. Uncultivated tracts of land, such as 

 mountain-sides, heaths, and forests, are its favourite 

 haunts. It is commonly called the Great Hornet- 

 fly, and its specific name too refers to its supposed 

 likeness to a hornet. But the name is little appli- 

 cable, for it requires a stretch of the imagination to 

 see the resemblance. As it comes tumbling along 

 with its lumbering flight and unmusical buzz, it 

 looks more like a greatly overgrown dung-fly than 

 a hornet. In richness of colouring it exceeds, not 

 only all our other diptera, but also most of the 

 other orders, and approaches the lepidoptera in 

 the tone of its colour. It seems, in fact, more like 

 a tropical than au English insect, so different is its 

 style from that of the insects to which we are 

 accustomed. The eyes are bronze green, and are 

 set off by fringes of orange hair on the face and 

 under-side of the head. The thorax is orange- 

 brown in colour, with a dark stripe down the mid- 

 dle, on each side of which is a patch of silvery grey. 

 The hinder half of it is thinly armed with long pale 

 brown bristles. The abdomen is covered with lus- 

 trous down, finer than the finest velvet, which is of 

 an intense black over the three basal segments, and 

 of a rich orange-brown over the remaining six in 

 the male ; in the female the last two segments are 

 black, and quite smooth and shiny. There are tufts 

 of black and white hairs at the edges of the three 

 basal segments. The legs are bright brown and 

 very hairy. But the most uniquely coloured parts 

 are the wings. The veins are ruddy (the paint called 

 burnt sienna would nearly match the colour), and 

 the membrane yellow (raw sienna), except along 

 the hind border, where each areolet is shadeci witn 

 grey. 



Quite a contrast in colouring is another species, 

 A. cestivus, which is a brownish-black fly clothed 



