HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



i°5 



difficult for the beech-forest of the peninsula to 

 renew itself. The wooded hills around the fjords by 

 Kiel, Flensborg, Kolding, and Veile, are especially 

 its home ; from hence it diminishes in every direction 

 — westwards, northwards, and eastwards among the 

 islands, although plentiful at intervals in some of the 

 woods, and chiefly on the island of Funen. Moen 

 also is rich in varieties of the group. 



The rose tribe follows, on the whole, the course of 

 the brambles, being especially rich in numbers and 

 varieties where they are most abundant, and towards 

 the end of June profusely adorning the hedge-rows 

 along the skirts of the woods. The rose is not, how- 

 ever, so characteristic of the east coast of the 

 peninsula as the bramble ; occurring in certain other 

 districts, for instance around Elsinore, abundantly as 

 there. 



The holly, on the contrary, forms a decided mark 

 of distinction between the woods of the peninsula 

 and those of Zealand, being quite absent from the 

 latter, and so exuberant in nearly all those on the 

 east coast of the former as to render forest-culture 

 difficult. Although not easily reared in gardens, in 

 woods where it finds itself at home it has great power 

 of extension ; partly by means of roots which creep 

 underground and send off branches, and because of 

 all Danish trees it alone can defy the shade of the 

 beech. While the bramble is so troublesome to 

 cultivators when the open scrub changes to beech- 

 forest, such change can only impel the holly to 

 assume, on all sides, a horizontal instead of a vertical 

 growth, its leaves still retaining their rich, glossy, 

 dark green tint. It is especially abundant and lux- 

 uriant in the woods to the south-east of Kolding, 

 and between the Kolding and the Veile fjords, keep- 

 ing closely adjacent to the sea ; a holly in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Veile measures twenty feet in height, 

 and its stem is nine inches in diameter at more than 

 four feet from the ground. It is found also in the 

 central parts of Jutland, and as far northwards as the 

 borders of the Lumfjord. Eastwards its frequency 

 rapidly diminishes ; in the woods on the west coast 

 of Funen, south of Middelfart, it is as plentiful as on 

 the opposite Slesvig coast, but rare in the rest of the 

 islands. It existed, however, less than a century 

 since, in places from whence it has since disappeared. 



Few plants elucidate the mildness of winter climate 

 better than the holly, for it is the winter cold that 

 determines its northern limit. In Norway it 

 advances up to Sondmoer (lat. 62°), while in 

 Germany its northern boundary line passes through 

 Gottingen, Strassburg, Munich, Vienna, and through 

 the south of Hungary to the Crimea. Its absence 

 from Zealand and the small islands is not, however, 

 to be attributed to the coldness of their winter climate, 

 but to their position ; the holly, coming from the 

 west, not having yet, in Denmark, advanced so far to 

 the east. 



As the holly and the rank growth of the bramble 



are peculiar to the west of Denmark, so there are 

 no fewer than five species of trees peculiar to the 

 east, namely to Bornholm. They are the white 

 beam, the intermediate white beam, the griping- 

 fruited service-tree, the cotoneaster, and the alpine 

 red currant. 



The wild cherry {Primus avium), and the wild pear 

 (Pyrus communis), are found in several parts of Den- 

 mark ; but the latter at least, notwithstanding its 

 thorns, and a difference in the form of its leaves and 

 fruit, is most likely the garden pear run wild. Unlike 

 the known indigenous trees, it has no native Danish 

 name. The stem of a wild cherry on Als, has a 

 diameter of fourteen inches. 



The mistletoe is rare in Denmark, both as regards 

 locality and number of plants. It has been observed 

 on the apple, the common maple, and the lime ; 

 Lolland and South Zealand are parts where it is 

 least rare. 



The trees hitherto mentioned, present in their 

 extension one or other peculiarity which may furnish 

 material for consideration. There are other species 

 which in their local occurrence may certainly present 

 peculiarities, but these are so slightly significant, that 

 it is not far from the truth to say that the species are 

 extended over the whole land. They include various 

 willows, the sea-buckthorn (not in forests), the wild 

 snow-ball, alder, honeysuckle, cornel, ivy, gooseberry, 

 currant, black-currant, purging buckthorn, spindle- 

 tree, sloe, bird-cherry, apple, hawthorn and rowan. 



NATURAL HISTORY JOTTINGS. 



oviposition and description of the ivy 

 Aphis. 



OCTOBER 9th, 18S2.— Having just completed a 

 perusal of the section bearing upon the Ants 

 in Sir John Lubbock's new work entitled "Ants, 

 Bees and Wasps," and met with his account and 

 descriptions of the ova of the aphis, I remembered 

 that in the autumn of 1SS0 (September 30th) I had 

 observed comparatively large and oblong ova on the 

 leaves of some ivy-plants close to and even amongst 

 the aphides in feeding them, and which I at the time 

 thought would be the ova of some one of the 

 hoverer-flies or Syrphi, deposited there so that the 

 young might be in the midst of their food as soon 

 as hatched, and that these ova passed through brown 

 colour from pale yellow into shining jet-black, and, 

 somewhat to my surprise, did not hatch while I 

 continued my observations. Consequently, this fore- 

 noon I revisited the aphis -infested ivy-plants, in the 

 full expectation of again meeting with these ova and 

 finding them to be, not the ova of a Syrphus, but 

 of the ivy aphis ; and, surely enough, there they 

 were, in greater numbers than on the former occasion, 

 and under the same conditions and colours ; and 



