November 26, 1888. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER, 



403 



If a £10 10s. cup, with a Beoond prize added, were offered 

 for each of Athyrium, Polyetichum, and Lastrea, I think aomo 

 of our first amateur Feru growers would be iuduced to compete 

 for the championship. 



The prizes should bo awarded to the (say six) largest and 

 best-grown Bpecimeua, the varieties at the same time being 

 good and distinct. 



Could not. Buoh sums be raised by subscription, and the 

 prizes be offered at one of the Royal Horticultural Society's 

 Shows? I should be glad to contribute £1 U. towards the 

 Athyrium cup. — Pteris. 



ROOKS AND CROWS. 



Instead of answering "An Allotment Gardener" in our 

 replies to correspondents, we will respond to his query. " Are 

 rooks and crows injurers of growing crops?" by making a 

 quotation from a lecture recently delivered by Mr. Scott Skirving 

 to the members of the Haddingtonshire Farmers' Club. 



" That ronks brlp thoraselvcs to the fruits of tho enrth, no one, least 

 of all the naturalist, can deny. Has he not called him Cnrvns fruKilefpis, 

 the frnit-^^athering crow ? So much for the evidence for the prosecu- 

 tion ; now for the defence. The whole of these attacks are more easily 

 gnarded than those of any other bird. Tho rook ia such a sensible 

 person that he knows a plon^hman in his farrow will do him no harm, 

 but he gives on old man with a little gunpowder a very wide berth. 

 Then, though he likes Potatoes and Corn, he is by no means obliged to 

 subsist upon them. On the contrary, his usual, ordinary, daily food 

 consists of worms, sings, Rrubs, beetles, and insects of almost every 

 description. I have opened and examiuod so many rooks that I think 

 I may say that, taking all the year round, nine parts in ten of their 

 food consist of insects. And what insects ? The common black beetle, 

 the parent of wireworra, the wirewomi itself, the Crane Hy, the parent 

 of the grub, and multitudes of the grubs themselves — in fact, almost 

 every one of the larger foes of the farmer. One most unfounded 

 charge has often been brought against the rook, even by practical 

 farmers. He has been charged with i)lucking up grass and Clover, 

 and with pulling up youn^ Turnips, just as the starling has been 

 charged with plnckini^ out the wool of sheep. In every case that the 

 rook has plucked a blade of prass or pulled a Turnip, it was to destroy 

 the insect that, as soon as it bad ruined that plant, would have pro- 

 ceeded to attack and destroy another. 



" Yes, I say, the rook does much more good than harm, but you 

 may have too much of a cood thing, and, therefore, care ought to be 

 taken that his numbers are not allowed to be excessive in any one 

 locahty. It is a mistake to say of him that bis natural enemies have 

 been destroyed by man. I should like to hear the names of his natural 

 enemies. He has put himself under the care and control of man in a 

 way that no other wild bird has. He builds on the ancestral trees 

 aronnd his house, without attempt at concealment, and it is for man 

 to saywhen he becomes too numerous. He is the useful servant of 

 man, but a man may have too many useful servants. I think, cou- 

 Bidering that almost every rookery is open to juvenile sportsmen, there 

 is not much fear of a too j^reat increase of these birds, the best of all 

 mral police. Talk of rat-catchers, rabbit-catchers, and mole-catchers 

 (the last animal doiuj^' more good than harm, by the way) : what are 

 these persons compared to the early-rising crow? Perhaps few here 

 ever heard a souc; dedicated to a crow, for, with all his excellences, I 

 cannot call him musical ; yet a true poet baa shown himself a true 

 observer of Nature also. Bailey, among the many odd songs he makes 

 his characters sinR in his wonderful poem of Festus, has one on the 

 crow, of which I shall read a couple of verses : — 



* Tho crow 1 the crow I the ffreat black crow I 

 He cares not to meet us wlierever we fin ; 

 He cares not for mjin, beast, friend, or foe, 

 For notbing will eat him, he well dnth know — 

 What a comfort to feel like a great black crow : ' 



*The crow I iho crow t the great black crow I 

 He loves the fat meailows— his taste is low ; 

 Hh loves the fat grubs, and he dines in a row 

 With fifty fair cousins all black as a Sloe — 

 Oh, it's jolly to fare like a great black crow.' " 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETING. 



Ttte first meeting of the season was held in the rooms of the Lin- 

 Bean Society in Burlington House, the President, Mr. H. W. Ba^es, 

 being in the chair. An extensive list of valuable publications added 

 to the Society's library during the autumn recess was read, and thanks 

 ordered to be given to the several donors. The Secretary also an- 

 nonnced that two parts of the Society's Transactions had been pub- 

 lished since the last meeting in July. 



Mr. S. Stevens exhibited a fine specimen of Sphinx celerio captured 

 hovering over Verbenas at Brighton on the 20th of September, also a 

 remarkable variety of Sterrha clathraria, fif^nred by Huhner as a dis- 

 iiiict species, immoraria, from the collection of M. Dcsvi^ies. Mr. 

 Bdwin Bnrchall exhibited a number of specimens of Vanessa Urticse 

 and Zygfcna filipendnlre from the Isle of Wight, which were uniformly 



much smaller in size than ordinary British specimens. Tho former, 

 alfio, were more strongly marked with black. 



A letter was road from Gunner Wilson, of tho Royal Artillery 

 Woolwich, describing a t^yuandromorphous specimen of Lasiocanipa 

 QaercuB, iu which the left half of the insect was maBCulino, and the 

 right half feminine. 



Mr. Davis exhibited a number of beautifully prepared caterpillars 

 of Lepidoptnrous insects (which ho makcH for sale at very reasonable 

 prices), and also stated that ho had observed that Sphinx Populi and 

 ocellata had been double-brooded during tho past seiison. A letter 

 roijuestiii^^ information and specimens of flails and Gall Flies of various 

 kinds was read from Messrs. MuUcr and Iwdd ; also on a Bpccics of 

 Oiketicua and otbcT Lepidoptera observed at Shanghai, in China, by 

 Herr Schrader. Mr. MuUer exhibited a box of Lepidoptera from New 

 York, and Mr. Prj-or specimens of the rare Scoparia Zcllori and 

 Agry])uia picta recently captured. 



Letters were received from A. H. Haliday, Esq., noticing the forth- 

 coming first part of the Transactions of tho Entomological Society of 

 Italy ; also from Mr. Rowland Trimen, giving an account of a remark- 

 ablt) Cricket, found in gardens at Cape Town, having a gigantic-sized 

 head, and belonging to the genus AnaMtostoma. 



Mr. Brigg.5, of St. John's College, Oxford, exhibited specimens of A 

 new British Moth, which has proved to be Leucania albimaculata, 

 taken by himself and his brother at Folkestone on the 15th August 

 and 5th October ; and the Secretary exhibited a specimen which h© 

 had received from Woolwich as the " Mustjuitoe," and which proved 

 to be a species of Chrysopa I 



The following memoirs were read: — Comments upon Mr. Buller'g 

 recertlv published Catalogue of Satyridre. so far as relates to the 

 South African species, by Mr. Rowland Trimen ; Contributions to tho 

 Knowledge of European Trichoptera, by Robert McLnchlan, Esq., 

 F.L.S. ; Further Descriptions of Exotic Heteromerous Coleoptera, by 

 Mr. F. Bates. 



GARDENING IN THE FAR WEST.— No. 1. 



The vast wildernesses of Canada and the States have required 

 whole generations of toil for their subjugation ; toil too exacting 

 and constant to admit any of the beauties or enjoyments of 

 decorative gardening, so that gardening as a fiue art has there 

 been lost. But a large extent of thet-e regions is now thickly 

 populated with independent cultivators of the soil, who own 

 their lands free of claims or dues, and who emulate each other 

 in improving and embellishing their hnme'^. Tliesae forest-bred 

 landowners live iu iine houses, eat and drink, and wear of the 

 best, and are in manners and habits genuiue country gentlemen ; 

 but, bred in the courts of nature, and accustomed to cutting 

 wide swathes, and working in a hasty way, they cannot con- 

 descend to take pains with trifling details, and it is a very rare 

 thing to find a native American engaged in carnful nursery 

 work or gardening. It is too "pottering." "There is not 

 enough to show for the time you have spent." Yet no people 

 are readier to appreciate or applaud the fine results of the 

 gardener's art and skill that are sometimes seen near the cities, 

 or on exhibition at the fairs, and nowhere certainly is there 

 greater want of his slcill. 



Green leaves and flowers in winter are wanted to solace the 

 long months during which the whole scpne is ^<heet snow, and 

 when blasts prevail which nip everythii);^ above the pnow line 

 that is not of the very hardiest, window t^ardeuing and winter 

 gardening generally are most desirable there. Fruit is wanted 

 over vast sections, which are parched hy wind, drained of 

 moisture by its condensation on frozen mountains and plains; 

 this dried air combining with severe spring fronts and hosts 

 of summer insects to destroy the bud, the bhissom, or the frait 

 itself. Yet when or where fruit escapes, the finest flavours and 

 colours are developed under the clear sky and bright h^t sunshine. 

 At thousands of homes there are wanted carpets of tliick grass, 

 choice patterns of flowers, curtains of slirubbery, and canopies 

 of shade. There are elegant and handsomely decoiated houses, 

 beautifully kept internally, but devuid nf all suitable setting 

 externajly for want of knowing how to effect it, or because the 

 effect cannot be seen and enjoyed at once. 



English gardeners are often met there — some very successful 

 — others, who do not happen to have a theoretieal knowledge 

 adequate to enable them to adapt their accustomed practice in 

 the mild humid climate, yet high sunlesH latitude of the country 

 of their birth, often fail sadly in everything but neatness of 

 work, and being isolated, unless in largo cities, they can leam 

 only in the too slow and dear school of individual experience 

 one lesson per annum. 



German gardeners are mostly growers of vegetables, and do 

 better; yet are often defeated by the peculiar, half-tropical rain 

 drenches and droughts of the summers. French, mostly 

 florists, few, and confined to the cities by their language and 



