HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



103 



have fed larvae from a certain tree, continue from 

 the same. The practice of changing about the food of 

 larvae is, I believe, together with wet, the source 

 to which most failures in breeding may be traced. 

 Caterpillars invariably thrive best on dry and well- 

 matured foliage. Not much pupee-hunting will be 

 done, there is too much other and more important 

 work on hand. But still on cold, windy days, one 

 may fill up one's time by examining grass-roots, 

 etc., for on such days other work will be almost im- 

 possible. 



I must not however forget to mention the 

 Tortrices, a great mass of species of which are now 

 in the larvae state ; rose and lilac, plum and pear and 

 other trees will be swarming with them. These 

 larvae are best gathered into muslin bags, in which 

 they may be kept in a cool place until the imagos 

 emerge ; kept thus they require but little attention. 

 As the food gets dry, fresh may be thrust into the bag 

 without the trouble of removing the old. 



Searching for imagos should be most assiduously 

 carried on this month, although we must expect east 

 winds and cold nights. If due diligence be used, 

 however, there will be a fairly good list of captures. 

 It is often up-hill work, though, looking for insects 

 of note, owing to the prevalence of east winds. But 

 still, " patience is a virtue," and no one has better 

 opportunity of proving it than the lepidopterist in 

 May. We have a variety of methods for taking 

 insects this month. "Treacle" will not be much 

 use, indeed it had better be abandoned altogether for 

 a time. " Light " will prove useful ; have an eye 

 therefore to the street lamps, and even shop windows 

 in country places. Palings and tree-trunks may now 

 be resorted to, and will be found profitable. With 

 regard to the former, painted fences are of no use, 

 although the moths do not at all mind tar. It is of 

 no use to examine palings after the sun has shone on 

 them long, so the collector must be up and at it 

 betimes ; C. chamomillce may thus be taken. The 

 above is also applicable to tree-trunks, although here 

 the moths will often shift around the tree as the sun 

 approaches them. Bushes and shrubs when beaten 

 will surprise the collector by the numbers of insects 

 they had concealed, and which will turn out and take 

 to flight. Moths may be driven out ef grass and 

 moss by means of tobacco-smoke. The yew-tree is 

 noted for harbouring moths, and may be beaten with 

 advantage. 



Look out for clearwing moths on leaves, especially 

 those of the currant ; they are fond of basking in 

 the sunshine. M> fuciformis and bombyliformis, in 

 meadows near woods, are very partial to the flowers 

 of the common bugle (Ajuga reptans). Among broom 

 C. obliquaria may be found. Fine sport and much 

 enjoyment may be derived from "sembling" this 

 month, notably with E. versicolora, S. carpini, B. 

 quercus and others. We shall begin work with the 

 net now, too. It is in this month that we may 



enjoy the sight of those exquisite little creatures the 

 orange-tips (A. cardamines). In the woods too we 

 may find A. euphrosyne and L. sinapis. Avoid 

 windy days for butterfly-hunting. If there be a 

 hedge, always keep to leeward of it, and if sun and 

 wind be opposite so much the better. In conclusion, 

 let me say that I shall always be glad to give any 

 further information to readers of this paper on 

 application. 



158 Arkwright Street, Nottingham. 



CORN MILDEW AND BARBERRY BLIGHT. 



EVERY reader probably knows that in old times 

 a belief was very prevalent amongst farmers 

 and agricultural labourers, that barberry-bushes in a 

 hedge were capable of causing the red rust and black 

 mildew of corn. The barberry was not invariably 

 selected as the cause of the mischief; sometimes it 

 was the whitethorn, at other times the blackthorn, 

 or even the buckthorn. At first no good observers 

 believed the rustics, but at length it was pointed out 

 that barberry-bushes were commonly afflicted with 

 an orange-coloured fungus resembling (to the unaided 

 eye) the rust fungus of corn. Because these fungi 

 appeared to be somewhat alike, it was surmised they 

 might be the same with each other ; and because it 

 was allowed they might possibly be the same it was 

 decided they were the same, or, if different, only 

 different forms of the same fungus. Primitive "ex- 

 periments " were soon initiated by placing spores of 

 the barberry blight fungus on to the leaves of corn 

 and spores of the corn mildew fungus on to barberry 

 leaves : the experimenters wished to prove that the 

 two fungi were really the same with each other, and 

 of course they (as they thought) succeeded. What 

 they could not see, and what no one has ever yet 

 seen, viz. an anatomical connection of one fungus 

 with the other, they imagined. Very little attention 

 was paid to these primitive and (as they were per- 

 formed) ridiculous experiments until Professor de 

 Bary, of Strassburg, repeated them in his laboratory, 

 and gave his adhesion to the idea of the identity of 

 the two fungi. After Professor de Bary had ex- 

 pressed his opinion very little more was said or 

 done, and the majority of botanists on the Continent 

 accepted and taught as truth Professor de Bary's 

 views. Those views have never been entirely accepted 

 in this country, although they have been loudly 

 taught in the schools and extensively printed in 

 handbooks. 



I have strongly objected to the supposititious con- 

 nection of the two fungi, for the following reason (one 

 amongst many others). It is, that corn is so seldom 

 free from red rust, and barberry-bushes are so seldom 

 free from the fungus of barberry blight, that there is 

 never any certainty that both corn and barberry- 

 bush do not possess traces of the disease before the 



