April 13, 1877. J 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTDRE AND OOXTAQB GARDENER, 



277 



detected daring a short period in the summer, jast when 

 Galium moUe (one of the Bedetraws) is in its best condition, 

 and before it dies down under the sultry heat or dry weather. 

 In colour this caterpillar is variable ; the horn is sharp and up- 

 right, while the sides, instead of stripes, have one straight 

 white line. Formerly I have taken the species where I suspect 

 it will never be found again — on marshy banks close to Kew. 

 Near the same spot it is a tradition with London entomologists 

 that " Elephant Hawks " used to be captured, settling on the 

 flowers of the Ragged Robin. — J. R. S. C. 



NEW BOOK. 



Economic Entomology ; Aptera. By Andeew Mdrray, F.L.S. 

 London : Chapman it Hall. 1877. 



The collection at the Bethnal Green branch of the South 

 Kensington Museum, which is intended to illustrate in a visible 

 tangible way what is known as economic entomology is, to 

 borrow a phrase from the late Edward Newman, " stretohing- 

 out its fair proportions," and as it is to be accompanied by a 

 series of handbooks, these in their amplitude must in some 

 measure correspond with the objects they are to serve to in- 

 dicate. If, as has been stated, economic entomology should 

 include all the insects that are either useful, harmful, or in 

 some way or other interesting to mankind, it is rather a diffi- 

 cult matter to fix our boundaries, and a host of insects might 

 put in their claims to be represented (were they so inclined 

 and capable), which have not yet been granted a place in the 

 widest collection of this kind. It ia possible that within the 

 collection above referred to many insects have been allowed 

 to take rank, the economic importance of which is question- 

 able, however curious or even valuable they may be in the 

 estimation of naturalists. For good reason, doubtless, the 

 author of this portly volume in treating of the subject entered 

 upon (for it would appear from the title page that he takes 

 the whole series in hand of which this forms a part), has chosen 

 to work upwards and not downwards. That is to say, instead 

 of beginning with the beetles, which are deemed to exhibit 

 insect life in its highest organism, he commences with the 

 wingless forms classed under the head of Aptera. We venture 

 to predict that as he proceeds he will find it necessary to con- 

 dense somewhat, and that his plan of treatment, admirable and 

 almost exhaustive as it is, will hardly be able to be carried 

 out throughout the volumes without unduly augmenting their 

 size and number. Hence Mr. Murray begins with discussing 

 myriapods, spiders, mites, and kindred species that in the 

 estimation of many persons are not insects at all, but either 

 to be located separately or set down as a group of the Crus- 

 taceans. Not so many years ago an editor of a journal in reply- 

 ing to a correspondent, could say that there was only one leading 

 entomologist who considered spiders and mites were insects. 

 We believe now that more entomologists have given their ad- 

 hesion to this opinion, bat most of the advocates of this classi- 

 fication are to bo found amongst those who may claim to be 

 good naturalists, yet who have not paid special attention to 

 the habits and transformations of insects. To us the line of 

 separation between most of the creatures included in Mr. 

 Murray's book and the true insects appears well marked, even 

 if structure alone were to be taken as the test. By the way, 

 those lively insects, Seas, so near akin to the lice, that close 

 this volume on Aptera, are not touched upon ; possibly the 

 author is one of those who regard them as degraded flies. 



Of the work in general it is only just to speak in terms of 

 praise, and the numerous accompanying figures have been 

 well selected and produced with correctness. The letterpress, 

 while it is fully up to the level of modern science, does not 

 aasnmo an air of abstruseness, though here and there a word 

 is ased which seems to call for an explanation in a foot-note, 

 tmless one more simple could have been substituted. Some 

 will, it may be, object to the intermingling of British and 

 exotic species, but this could not well be avoided. Looking 

 at the book from the gardener's point of view, we perceive that 

 it informs him that the number of his foes in this division is 

 more numerous than he would have supposed, though the 

 injuries done by spiders, mites, and their allies, especially in 

 frames and hothouses, have long been known or suspected. 

 Fortunately, to a great extent, the ravages of some of these 

 pests are frequently checked, either by the attacks of their 

 peculiar enemies or from causes not so easily ascertained. 

 Others, again, attack, and if they do not kill they serve to 

 weaken, insects which are exceedingly troublesome in the 

 garden or the hoaae ; thus Scirus Insectorum is a six-footed 



mite that exists by sucking the vital fluids of the larvae of the 

 Wireworms (Elaters), and also of several of the Tipulas or 

 Craneflies. The minute scarlet-jacketed Trombidium para- 

 siticum clings closely to the wings of the house fly, deriving 

 nutriment from the veins. More useful still is such a species 

 as T. aurantiacum, if it be true as is thought, that its especial 

 food ia the black aphis. In various species it is difficult to 

 determine from their cautions habits whether the insects are 

 friendly or hostile to the pursuits of horticulture. Thus the 

 hard-shelled Beetle Mite (so-called from that integument), 

 DamiEUS jeniculatus, was formerly noticed by Curtis as oc- 

 cnning in clustering masses on fruit trees near the base of 

 the twigs, and he not unnaturally assumed that by sucking 

 the sap they weakened in the spring those trees which are 

 affected by them. The closer researches of Boisduval led him 

 to conclude that the mites iu question actually prey upon the 

 eggs and larva3 of thripa and of a leaser mite, and doubtless 

 they themselves furnish food to other creatures in turn. Many 

 of the mites are evidently quahfied to feed both upon animal 

 and vegetable substances : to decide, therefore, which is their 

 primary or legitimate food is a matter of some nicety. The 

 observation made by Murray at page 170, when referring to 

 the history of the common bird tick (Dermanyssus avium), 

 that there are well authenticated cases of these pests migrat- 

 ing from birds to those who come in contact with them, should 

 lead those who keep poultry and cage birds to be more vigilant 

 with regard to the extirpation of such parasites in so far aa 

 they can be dealt with by various applications, and, above all, 

 by rigid cleanliness. Nor is it agreeable to be told that _ at 

 least a case or two is on record where dysentery has been, with 

 show of probability, ascribed to the breeding of cheese mites 

 in the human stomach. It would be a capital thing if a lotion 

 of infusion of tobacao, mentioned by Mr. Murray as highly 

 efficacious in one instance of a skin affection caused by mites, 

 were found available in other instances where the present 

 modes of cure chiefly by the means of sulphur applications are 

 tedious and even painful. 



One of the best chapters in the book is that elucidating the 

 history of the Gall-mites (Phytoptidre), from which we take a 

 specimen paragraph. Our author is describing the manner in 

 which they exhibit themselves on plants. He says : — " They 

 attack plants iu two different ways, one through the bud, the 

 other through the leaves. Of the two, the former seems the most 

 injurious. In spring the buds attacked are seen to languish 

 and decay, or to assume a rounded swollen form without push- 

 ing out. On tearing a bud open hundreds of minute semi- 

 transparent moving things may, by the help of a lens, be seen 

 between the leaflets ; these are the Phytopti, but it takes a 

 good glass to see them at all. When it is the leaves that are 

 attacked, the excrescences or galls of various kinds of which 

 we have spoken are formed upon them. Sometimes the Phy- 

 topti are to be found in great numbers inside, and in that 

 case the inner surface is free from hairs, unless, perhaps, a few 

 stumps, and looks raw like a galled wound, like the surface 

 of the leaflets in the bud, but more frequently no Phytopti 

 are found in the galls." 



PORTRAITS OF PLANTS, FLOWERS, and FRUITS. 



SoLANUu ACANTHODEB. Nat. ord., SolanaceaB. Linn., Pent- 

 andria Monogynia. Flowers pale blue-purple. — " This fine 

 Solanum was for some years an ornament of the Palm-stove 

 at Kew, but I am not certain of its origin ; it bore the name 

 of S. acanthooalyx, Klotzsch ; and aa that author was keeper 

 ol the Eoyal Herbarium of Berhn at the time, it is probable 

 that the plant was derived from the Berlin garden. It is not, 

 however, the true S. acanthooalyx, which is a Mozanabique 

 plant, described as having two-flowered peduncles which are 

 densely aculeate. Its nearest ally is undoubtedly the S. ma- 

 cranthum, Dunal (DC. Prod. vol. xiii. pars 2, p. 315), a native 

 of the Amazons, of which there are line specimens from Spruce 

 in the herbarium at Kew, which differ iu the broader, shorter, 

 more rounded sinuately-lobed leaves, in the much larger buds 

 and calyx, which and the pedicels are not at all or very rarely 

 aculeate, not densely shortly setoRC as in our plants. The 

 S. maorantbum of this work again (t. 41:18), and of the ' Revue 

 Horticole' (1807, p. 132), ia a very different plant, with the leaf- 

 blade decurreut on the petiole, and ia the S. marionense, Poit. 

 I find no apecies out of the many hundred in tho Kew herb- 

 arium, nor in the descriptions of Dunal, at all agreeing in this, 

 of which I am obliged reluctantly to make a new species. The 

 figure was made in August, 1803."— (Cot. Mag., t. 0283.) 



