Miscellaneous. 445 



as Mr. Gray, a few of the former impressions of some of the 

 brightest moments of his life ; while the fact that he did not live to 

 see this parting effort fully realized, but died as the last sheet was 

 passing through the press, will more than suffice to ensure a chari- 

 table judgment from even his most captious readers. Harder and 

 more enduring work than this Mr. Clark did, and he did it well. 

 From his earliest years he had been a patient student of Nature, 

 and, catholic- minded, had delighted in all her works ; and he was 

 not only a careful describer, but likewise (which is even more im- 

 portant still) a genuine and enthusiastic collector — gainiug his know- 

 ledge, perhaps, more from the woods and streams than from books. 

 His earliest partiality was for plants ; he then took to birds ; then, 

 with considerable energy, to spiders ; afterwards to butterflies and 

 moths, of which he formed a large and valuable collection ; and, last 

 of all, and most successfully, to beetles. It was, indeed, to the Coleo- 

 ptera that the best labours of his life were devoted ; and with the great 

 departments of the Phytophaga and the water-beetles his name will 

 be associated (in connexion with many admirable papers, catalogues, 

 and monographs) as long as entomology continues to be studied, and 

 cultivated as a science. Like many before him, he has passed from 

 among us ; but he has left a record behind which will, and must, endure. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

 Mermis nigrescens. By William Mitten, A.L.S. 



The garden-hairworm has received so much attention this year 

 and so much has been written respecting it by various observers 

 since the past summer, without, however, clearing up some obscure 

 portions of its history, that I have been tempted to contribute my 

 mite in aid of its elucidation. 



After showers, in the month of June, the hairworm has been 

 repeatedly brought to me as a curiosity for the microscope ; but my 

 own practical acquaintance with it commenced about eight years 

 ago, when, having grafted a number of small plants of whitethorn, 

 about a foot high, with pears, I was continually annoyed by finding 

 the bursting buds eaten off during the night. On visiting them 

 with a lantern, after a showery evening, when I expected to catch 

 the depredators, I was somewhat startled to see on several of my 

 grafts the hairworm, which, adhering to the top of the scion by, I 

 presume, the posterior portion of its body, sup(iorted the remainder 

 in the air ; and all were moving freely in a kind of gyrating motion, 

 as if ready to seize a prey. No trace of the creatures could be found 

 by daylight ; and I did not impute to them the destruction of my 

 buds. I have since seen the hairworm, in tlie very early morning, 

 on the wet leaves of bushes four feet above the surface of the earth. 

 I have also dug it from about eighteen inches below the surface in 

 the early spring : in this instance 1 found two individuals coiled to- 

 gether in the hole made by the common earthworm ; these were of 

 a paler, somewhat dirty cream-colour ; and I kept them alive for a 

 time in a bottle, but they eventually dried up. 



