Queries and Answers, 4b 5 



'The Zimb. — I have lately read that the effects produced by this insect, 

 both on man and beast, are of a dreadful nature. Bruce, in his Travels iw 

 Africa, says, " As soon as this winged assassin appears, and his buzzing is 

 heard, the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain till they 

 are worn out with fatigue, fright, and pain." I shall feel obliged if any of 

 your correspondents can inform me to what order this terrible insect belongs, 

 with a description of its habits, and the method of producing the fatal 

 effects ascribed to it. Is it not the ^7/ mentioned by the prophet Isaiah, 

 ch. vii. V. 18. and 19. ? — W. H. White. Bedford, June 9. 1829. 



Spinning Slugs, (p. 69. and .303.) — Sir, Careful observers of natural pheno- 

 mena may doubtless find many opportunities of observing slugs spin. I, 

 without pretending to be more than a casual observer, and having but few 

 opportunities, have witnessed it more than once ; and I can state from actual 

 observation, that slugs do climb up trees at this time of the year (July), and 

 particularly in warm damp weather, and suspend themselves by a slimy 

 cord from a branch ; but that it is not done for any purpose implied in, or 

 that could be inferred from, your correspondent's article; it is for the purpose 

 of copulation, and I believe all our indigenous slugs procreate in the same 

 manner. I have never seen snails shooting love shafts at each other; I should 

 be glad I did, being rather sceptical on that head. Perhaps some of your 

 correspondents could give some information as to what time of year and in 

 what situations they might be observed. I am, Sir, &c. — J. B, Liverpool, 

 July 10. 1829. 



Flora Virgiliana. — Sir, Your correspondent W. (p. 401.) expresses a de* 

 sire that you should furnish us with a complete Flora Virgiliana. " I should 

 like," he says, " to see all the weeds included;" a desire in which every 

 botanist, as well as scholar, will be ready to join. It were, indeed, devoutly 

 to be wished ; for we should then, with W., " recur with a new pleasure to 

 our old acquaintance," — 



" Lappaeque tribulique; interque nitentia culta 

 Infelix lolium,*' &c. 



Till something of the kind be effected, schoolboys are under the neces- 

 sity of rendering these words, not by their real appropriate names, but by 

 those of some analogous weeds of their own country, and their masters are 

 unable to teach them better. My schoolmaster, Mr. Editor, was a botanist 

 as well as a scholar; and as I had early imbibed a love for natural history, 

 the georgic lesson was always a pleasure to me, — I believe I may say, to 

 both of us. Still, however, even with the help of Martyn's edition, which 

 he always had before him on the occasion, and kindly allowed me to con- 

 sult, we were sometimes at a fault ; the Roman plants seemed often to 

 defy us to identify them, and Virgil and Linnaeus were not easily to be re- 

 conciled. 



Your correspondent having dismissed the weeds, goes on to say, " In the 

 mean time, until difficulties be cleared away, let us rejoice in the" 



— — " biferique rosaria Paesti : 

 Et virides apio ripae, tortusque per herbam 

 ......... cucumis ; nee sera comantem 



Narcissum, BXit Jlexi . . . vhnen acanthi,^* Sec. 



From the manner in which these lines are introduced, I am almost in- 

 clined to think that your correspondent sees no difficulties here, and is sa- 

 tisfied as to the species of all the plants enumerated in this passage. But 

 does it not present us with some obscurities as great as those in which the 

 weeds before mentioned are involved ? What species, for instance, is meant 

 by « sera comantem narcissum? " Most, if not all the iViarcissi, are, with 



