PHRYN1CHUS 



PHYLLOXEKA 



157 



Venus. The famous 'Venus Anadyomene ' of 

 Apelles is said to liave lieen a portrait of Phryne. 

 Praxiteles, also a lover of hers, employed her as a 

 model for his ' Cnidian Venus. ' 



Phry'nicllUS, ( 1 ) an Athenian tragic poet, 

 who gained his first dramatic prize in 511 B.C., 

 twelve years liefore .Ksehylus, and his last in 476, 

 when Themistocles was his r7</</v///.v. He seems 

 to have gone to the court of Hiero in Sicily, and to 

 have died there. He introduced masks represent- 

 ing women, and to the light mimetic chorus of 

 Thespis added the sublime music of the ilithyramhic 

 choruses. His most famous tragedies were the 

 Phixniiste, which is supposed to have inspired the 

 Persoe of i'Eschylus, ana another which had for its 

 subject the capture of Miletus by the Persians. 

 So overpowering was its effect that the audience 

 burst into a passion of tears, lined the .poet a 

 thousand drachma- for so harrowing a description 

 of the sufferings of a kindred people, and forbade 

 the piece ever again to l>e represented. His scanty 

 fragments will l>e found in Nauck's Tragicorum 

 < , , a '1,1-nni fragmenta ( 1856). 



(2) A poet of the old Attic comedy, who was 

 honoured by the abuse of his great contemporary 

 A i istophanes ( Ran. 14 ) for his low butloonery. His 

 fragments are collected in Meineke's Fraymeiita 

 i 'iiiiiii-'ifiini Hi'iri-iiriiiii ( IM9-57) and Koch's Comic- 

 uniiii .ttti'-nriiiii fntr/menta ( 1880 et sea.). 



(.'i) A (ircek griiniiiiariiin and sophist who flour- 

 ished under Marcus Aurelius, and wrote a collec- 

 tion of select specimens of Attic usage intended for 

 tin 1 benefit of his friend (Jorneliamis, secretary to 

 the emperor. It consists of ulxmt four hundred 

 short unconnected dicta on the orthography, signifi- 

 calion, and use of particular words, and upon the 

 rules of accidence, especially in verbs. The edition 

 by Lobeck (1820) was followed by The ft'ew Plirynt- 

 ehus, by \V. liunioii Hutherford (1881). 



I'lithali-in. See DYEING, Vol. IV. p. 141. 



Plltlliotis, tlie south-east corner of Thessaly 

 (q.v. ), the home of Achilles. 



Phthisis. See CONSUMPTION. 



Phylactery ((Jr. />////</ /-/ji, 'an amulet'), 

 the name given in the New Testament to small 

 square Imxes of parchment or black cull skin, con 

 taining strips of parchment or vellum with certain 

 texts of Scripture ( Exod. xiii. 2-10, 11-17; Dent, 

 vi. 4-9, 13-22) written on them. The phylacteries 

 are worn on the left arm and on the head by all 

 Jews ( except Karaites ) above thirteen years of age 

 on week-day mornings during the time of prayer. 

 This is done in accordance with their interpretation 

 of Exod. xiii. 9-16. Some Russian and Polish Jews 

 wear phylacteries all day ; and they have at times 

 been worn as amulets against demons. The 

 writing of phylacteries is in the hands of privileged 

 scril.es ( ,>'/; run) only, and many and scrupulous 

 are the ordinances which they have to follow in the 

 execution of this task. 



Phyllite. a schistose clay-rock, containing a 



variable proportion of quartz in grains, together 

 with mica, usually chlorite, and sometimes many 

 aeci'-sory minerals. The rock is more crystalline 

 than clay-slate, and passes into mica schist. The 

 surfaces of the folia in phyllite are frequently finely 

 wrinkled. 



Phyllotaxis. See LEAK, Vol. VI. p. 548. 



Phylloxe'ra (Gr. phyllon, 'a leaf,' and zeros, 

 'dry'), a genus of insects belonging to a family 

 < I'hylloxerina-) nearly related to aphides and 

 emeus insects, and included within the sub-order 

 Homoptera in the order Hemiptera or Khynchota. 

 Two or three species occur in Europe, living 

 like many related forms as parasites on plants. 

 M'rnt important is P. vaitatrix, which ravages 



the vine, and has cost France alone a pecuniary 

 loss far exceeding that of the Franco-German war. 

 It seems to have been discovered in North America 

 in 1854, and in all likelihood was carried thence to 

 Europe, where it appeared about 1863. It now 

 occurs in all vine-growing countries. In some of 

 its features it is Tike a little aphis, measuring 

 about -jVth of an inch in one of its stages, or only 

 a fourth of that in others, varying from yellow to 

 reddish brown in colour. The antenme are thick, 



Life-history of Phylloxera (from Leunis). 

 A, a winged female; B, a wingless female from the root; 



C, under surface of a vine-leaf, showing the wart-like galls; 



D, an enlarged section of one of the galls, Knowing the eggs 

 within it ; E,up|K>r surface of a vine-leaf, showing the openings 

 of the galls; F, some of the roots of the vine, showing the 

 nodosities caused by the jjarasites. 



with three joints ; the legs are short and thick ; 

 there is no trace of the ' honey-tiilies ' characteristic 

 of aphides ; the winged forms, which are all par- 

 thenogenetic females, have four wings. As in 

 the nearly related genus Chermes a destructive 

 parasite of conifers the life-history is exceedingly 

 complex. 



Let us begin with the winged females, which in 

 Europe appear from August to October. Each 

 lays a I M nit four j>arthenogenetic ova on the under 

 surface of the vine-leaves. These ova develop in 

 late autumn into males and females wingless and 

 without the characteristic piercing and sucking 

 mouth-organs which migrate to the stem of the 

 vine. There each female lays a single egg under 

 the bark. This egg lies dormant throughout the 

 winter, and develops in April or May into a wing- 

 less but voracious ' vine- louse.' This form may 

 pass to the leaves, on which it lays parthenogenetio 

 eggs, and forms galls ; but in Europe it attacks the 

 roots, and lays its eggs there. From these in about 

 eight days young develop, which become mature 

 females in about twenty days, and lay more eggs 

 in the roots. Half a dozen or more of these par 

 thenogenetic generations follow in rapid succession 

 throughout the summer. The roots become knotted 

 and deformed ; the whole plant suffers, and, though 

 it may survive for several seasons, eventually dies. 

 In midsummer, among the subterranean forms, a 

 generation is Imrn whose members, after four, in- 

 stead of the usual three, moultings associated with 

 adolescence, Income the larger winged females with 

 which we began. 



The destruction of this scourge of the grape- 

 vine, without also injuring or destroying the 

 plants, has hitherto proved impracticable, owing 

 to the difficulty experienced in reaching its 



