'242 M INT- 



habit. When the young minnows first come out of 

 the egg they are exceedingly minute, and so trans- 

 parent that hardly any part of them is visible, except 

 the eyes, which are large and dark coloured. The 

 little things require indeed to have their eyes about 

 them, because they are exposed to many enemies. 

 The more advanced fry of those fishes which spawn 

 early live upon them in a great measure ; and so do 

 the larvae of many insects which pass that stage of 

 their existence in the waters. 



At all times, indeed, the minnows appear to be 

 destined as the prey of one or another of their fellow 

 inhabitants of the waters ; and in this way, small as 

 they are, they are not unimportant in nature's eco- 

 nomy. When the trout and salmon ascend the brooks 

 and "streams for the purpose of spawning, the min- 

 nows serve them in great part as food in situations 

 and at a season when other food for them is but 

 scanty. The young again are ready to supply the 

 young of those fishes ; and thus the minnows, endowed 

 themselves with highly prolific powers, are the cause 

 or the means rather, of keeping up those races which 

 are more useful to man. The upper part of the min- 

 now is of a dusky olive colour, a little mottled, and 

 gradually passing into a lighter tint on the sides. This 

 passes into a tint of delicate pink in the summer 

 season ; but the pink is the nuptial livery of the fish, 

 and wears off in the winter. The irides and gill- 

 covers are silvery white, and the fins brown ; those 

 on the under side of the body paler than the others. 

 The body is long and slender ; the head about one- 

 fifth of the length, exclusive of the caudal fin. The 

 tail is large for the size of the fish, and very much 

 forked. The dorsal and anal fins are also pretty 

 large ; and altogether this little fish is a clever swim- 

 mer. The body is covered with very minute scales, 

 and marked with a distinct lateral line, which is 

 straight in the posterior part of the body, and bent 

 upwards in the anterior part. The minnow, though 

 one of the smallest of our native fishes, is far from 

 being one of the least interesting ; and it is so gene- 

 rally distributed, and so little prone to concealment 

 in its habits, that it may be said to be more open to 

 observation than any of the rest. 



MINT is the Mentha virulis of Linnaeus. A 

 common garden herb. 



MIRABILIS (Linnaeus). A genus of South 

 American tuberous rooted herbs long cultivated as 

 ornamental plants in gardens. They belong to the 

 fifth class of Linnaeus, and to the natural order Nyc- 

 tagineae. The marvel of Peru is universally known, 

 it having a place in every garden. The roots must 

 be taken out of the ground during winter, and kept 

 in a dry place out of reach of frost. In the spring 

 they should be replanted in the open border, to flower 

 in the autumn. 



MIRBELIA (Smith). A genus of evergreen 

 shrubs, natives of New Holland. The flowers are 

 decandrous, and belong to the natural order Legumi- 

 IIOSCE. The best soil for them is a mixture of loam 

 and moor earth, and the cuttings will strike roots in 

 sand under a bell glass. 



MISTLETOE is the Viscum album of Linnaeus. 

 A curious parasite shrub growing on different sorts 

 of trees in English woods. It belongs to the order 

 Loranthe. 



MITE. The ordinary English name of various 

 minute apterous insects, forming the Linnaean genus 

 Acarus, or the order Monomerotomata of Leach, by 



MITRA. 



whom, however, these insects have been consti- 

 tuted a distinct class of the articulated animals, iu 

 which respect he has met with no followers. The 

 structure of the insects being referrible to the 

 arachnidous type, although the mode of respiration 

 by tracheae differs from the more typical Arachnida; 

 but in this group the characters derived from the re- 

 spiratory organs have recently been proved by the 

 researches of M. Duges to be of but a secondary 

 importance. Various interesting peculiarities relating 

 to these insects are detailed in the article ACARUS ; 

 but the chief motive in our again noticing them is to 

 mention the very valuable discoveries lately made 

 by M. Duges, an indefatigable French naturalist, 

 by whom it has been proved that they undergo 

 metamorphoses consisting in some groups of an in-, 

 crease in an additional pair of legs, whereby one of 

 the sections proposed in the group by Latreille and 

 Hermann (Trombides hexapodes) is found to consist 

 only of insects in an imperfect state, whilst in others 

 the change of form is complete. This is especially 

 the case in the water mites, the larva? of which have 

 a very large head and six legs ; the pupa? are 

 inactive, attaching themselves by a single pair of 

 very short legs to the bodies of other aquatic insects, 

 and being composed as it were of an oval bag with a 

 narrow neck ; the insect in this state having been 

 formed by M. V. Audouin into the" genus Achlysia, 

 and being specifically named A. dylici, from taking 

 up its residence beneath the elytra of the great water- 

 beetle Dyticus marginalis ; they also attach themselves 

 to the slender filaments composing the tails of the 

 water-scorpions (Ncpa and llanatra). 



MI'FELLA (Linnaeus). A genus of small North 

 American perennial herbs, belonging to Saxifragca:. 

 The flowers are white and pretty, and well fitted for 

 rockwork. 



MITRA (Lamarck ; VOLUTA, Linnaeus). This 

 very numerous and truly elegant genus of molluscs 

 was confounded by Linnaeus with his genus Valuta, 

 from which it so essentially differs in many charac- 

 teristic distinctions that its separation is obviously 

 necessary. These are that the summit of the spire 

 is always pointed, and never terminated in a papillary 

 form ; the plaits on the columella gradually diminish 

 in size towards the base ; the upper are consequently 

 larger than the lower; they are always transverse 

 and parallel to each other ; the columella lip exists, 

 though sometimes very thin, and only visible at the 

 base, and some species possess an epidermis. The 

 general form of the Mitra is turretted or subfusiform, 

 base notched, no canal, no operculum. No shell 

 presents greater beauty of sculpture and colouring 

 than some of this species. They are of every possi- 

 ble pattern, with transverse grooves, punctures, gra- 

 nulations, striae, and sometimes smooth, the colours 

 of every hue. In some species the upper part of the 

 whorls, being crenulated and the outward lip dentated, 

 are additional characters, distinguishing them from 

 the Volutes in which these never occur. Four sub- 

 divisions may well be formed of this genus: the first, 

 of such as are turriculated, the aperture very narrow, 

 ribbed, and with one plait, the M. tceniata; secondly, 

 those turriculated, the aperture wide, and large spiral 

 whorls, the M. eplscopalls ; thirdly, the sub-oval spe- 

 cies, with a short spire, generally tuberculated, the 

 M. microzonias; and lastly, those of an oval form and 

 a very short spire, by some authors called the M. oli- 

 varia, an example of which is the M. dactylus. The 



