662 



CACTUS CADD1CE WORMS. 



anodyne in hooping-cough, but is now employed 

 chiefly for the purpose of colouring tinctures and lip- 

 salves. 



Opuntia vulgaris, or Cactus opuntia, is found grow- 

 ing abundantly between Rome and Naples. It bears 

 a berry of a deep purple colour. Its prickly leaves 

 abound in a mucilaginous matter, which is used as 

 an emollient poultice in some countries. 



Opuntia Tuna is cultivated in Mexico and Brazil 

 as food for the cochineal. It is used for hedges in 

 Spain, South America, and the West Indies. When 

 the island of St. Christopher was to be divided 

 between the British and French, three rows of this plant 

 were planted by common consent between the bound- 

 aries. The stamens of this plant possess a peculiar 

 kind of irritability. When a quill or feather is drawn 

 across their filaments, they immediately begin to lie 

 on one side, and then sink down gradually to the 

 bottom of the flower. 



Melocactus communis, great melon thistle, or Turk's 

 cap, is like a large fleshy green melon covered with 

 sharp prickles. It may also be said to have some 

 resemblance to a hedgehog. The flowers and fruit 

 grow in clusters around the upper part of the cap. 

 In the West Indies this plant is met with two yards 

 in circumference, and four or five feet high. It 

 grows on the steep sides of rocks in the hottest parts 

 of America along with the Mammittaria simplex and 

 prolifera. The fruit of all these plants is agreeably 

 acid, and is eaten as a cooling fruit in the West 

 Indies. Cattle are said to eat the succulent parts of 

 these plants in the time of drought. 



The Mammillaria simplex is remarkable on account 

 of yielding a milky juice, which has a sweetish taste, 

 in place of being acid. The rnilky juice of the 

 Cereus grandiftorus, flagellifornm, and other cacti, is 

 used in St. Domingo to inflame and blister the skin, 

 as well as to act as a violent purgative. 



Cereus repandus, lanaginostis, and Peruvianus, as 

 well as Opuntia Braziliensis, all yield edible fruit. 



The best fruit, however, is furnished by the Cereus 

 triangularis, or strawberry pear. It is much esteemed 

 in Martinique and other West Indian islands. 



Cereus speciosissimus, on account of its beautiful 

 large pink flowers, is extensively cultivated in green- 

 houses. It is, however, inferior in beauty to the 

 Cereus grandiflorus, or night-flowering creeping cereus. 

 This species bears magnificent sweet-scented flowers, 

 which only remain out for about six hours. There 

 is seldom more than one flower expanded at a time. 

 The flower-bud begins to open at seven or eight 

 o'clock in the evening, is fully blown by eleven, and 

 by three or four in the morning is faded and withered. 

 When once the flower closes, it never opens again. 

 The calyx is often a foot in diameter. Its inside is 

 of a bright yellow colour, while the petals are pure 

 white. The plant flowers in July. 



The Cereus jlagelliformis has also fine sweet-scented 

 flowers, which are numerous, of a beautiful pink 

 colour, and remain open for three or four days. The 

 species of the genus Rkipsalis are curious jointed 

 prostrate plants. 



CACTUS (Linnaeus). The melon-thistle, a genus 

 of stove succulents, natives of the driest parts of tro- 

 pical countries. Linna?an class and order, Icosandria 

 Monogynia; natural order, Cacteac. Generic character : 

 calyx bell-shaped, imbricated ; corolla, petals six or 

 more inserted on the calyx ; stamens numerous, 

 joined to the calyx ; filaments awl-shaped ; anthers 



oval, and two-celled; stigma many cleft, berry many 

 seeded. These plants being of remarkable character 

 attracted the notice of travellers in South America, 

 where they are chiefly found, and being tenacious of 

 life, were easily transported to Europe, where some 

 of them have been long cultivated in hot-houses. 

 They are mostly destitute of leaves, and composed 

 of thick fleshy stems entire or jointed, and of the most 

 grotesque shapes. They are spiny ; either ranged 

 along the prominent angles of the stem, or growing 

 in tufts on the surface. The Turk's cap (C, melo- 

 cactus) is a regularly formed and curious production ; 

 the body being ribbed like a melon, with tufts of 

 short spines along the angles, and bearing its flowers 

 and fruit round the upper part of the tassel of the 

 cap. Full grown plants are sometimes met with in 

 the West Indies two feet in diameter. The interior 

 is a soft green pulp, very full of moisture, and never 

 changing to a woody consistence. The fruit of 

 some of them are eatable, and resemble in shape and 

 size the fig of Europe. This genus, which formerly 

 comprised a great many plants supposed to be species, 

 is now so much divided, that very few real cacti 

 remain. 



CADDICE WORMS. The larvae of the species 

 of insects composing the Linnasan genus Phryganea, 

 or the modern order Trichoptera (Kirby). are thus 

 named. They are found in the water, under stones, 

 or crawling upon subaquatic plants, and are inclosed 

 in a case of their own construction, the materials of 

 which are very different in the different species. 

 These insects are well known to fishermen as an 

 excellent bait for several kinds of fish. Thus, Izaak 

 Walton tells us, in his chapter on baits, " There be 

 divers kinds of cadis, or case worms, that are to be 

 found in this nation, in several distinct counties, and 

 in several little brooks that relate to bigger rivers;" 

 and he then proceeds to describe several species of 

 them, as first, that which is called a " piper," whose 

 husk or case is a piece of reed about an inch long. 

 " And these be a choice bait for the chub, or cha- 

 vender, or indeed for any great fish, for it is a large 

 bait ;" then there is the "cock spur, being in fashion 

 like the spur of a cock, sharp at one end, and the 

 case or house in which this dwells is made of small 

 husks and gravel and slime, most curiously made of 

 these, even so as to be wondered at, but not to be 

 made by man, no more than a kingfisher's nest can, 

 which is made of little fishes' bones, and have such 

 a geometrical interweaving and connexion, as the 

 like is not to be done by the art of man." Another 

 is called a straw-worm, and by some a fur-coat, 

 " whose house is made of little pieces of bents and 

 rushes, and straws, and water weeds, and I know not 

 what." Derham, in his Physico-Theolog) 7 , quoted 

 by Sir John Hawkins, states the proceedings of these 

 insects, which he calls cadews : " one sort house them- 

 selves in straws, called from thence straw-worms, 

 others in two or more sticks laid parallel to one 

 another, creeping at the bottom of brooks; others 

 with a small bundle of pieces of rushes, duck-weeds, 

 sticks, &c., glued together, wherewith they float on the 

 top, and can row themselves therein about the waters 

 with the help of their feet ; both these are called cad- 

 bait. It is a notable architectonic faculty which all 

 the variety of these animals have to gather such 

 bodies as are fittest for their purpose, and then to 

 glue them together, some to be heavier than water, 

 that the animal may remain at bottom where its food 



