172 OTTR COMMON FRUITS. 



unfortunately proved when the orange-trees at Fayal were 

 attacked, some years ago, by a new and strange insect, 

 which completely destroyed a large number of them, the 

 only effectual remedy being to cut down the tree as soon 

 as the disease showed itself, leaving only the stump 

 covered with earth, whence new and healthy shoots would 

 then grow up. It first appeared in the gardens of the 

 American consul, immediately after he had had an import- 

 ation of trees from his native country planted there, and 

 no doubt was entertained of its having been thus intro- 

 duced ; but it spread so rapidly all over the island that 

 the other Azores, in great alarm, placed Fayal in a sort of 

 quarantine, lest it should reach them ; and though very 

 strenuous efforts were made to overcome the evil, its 

 effects are by no means yet recovered from. In Florida, 

 too, the orange-trees were almost exterminated some years 

 ago by the ravages of the Coccus Hesperidum ; but it is 

 said that a specific against these insects has been disco- 

 vered in the common camomile, when either planted at the 

 root of the tree or even hung in gathered bunches among 

 its boughs. 



Accustomed, from what is seen on every table and in 

 every street and shop, to associate with the name of 

 orange only the regular form of that " oblate spheroid " 

 with which geographers delight to illustrate the figure of 

 this our earth, any one to whom they were presented for 

 the first time would be likely to be rather astonished on 

 being called upon to give that title to many of the curious 

 objects which figure in the illustrations to M. Bisso's ela- 

 borate work. Yariegated in colour, and most strangely 

 diversified in form ; stained, striped, ribbed like the melon, 

 nippled like the lemon ; horned, as it is called, like no- 

 thing else in nature ; adhering together and growing upon 

 each other like the two "halves" of a cottage loaf; or 

 within each other, and peeping forth like the progeny of 

 an opossum from the mother's pouch ; some of the oddest 

 irregularities of Nature are to be found claiming kindred 

 -with our simple yellow ball, and turning the common ex- 

 pression "as round as an orange" into a piece of most 

 contemptuous irony. It may not be uninteresting to 



