434 



PHASEOLUS PHASMIDJE. 



confinement it eats a greater variety of food, and it 

 has no objection to milk. It readily eats all sorts of 

 fruits, roots, and culinary vegetables, and also bread ; 

 so that it is just as passive in the taste of its food as 

 in any thing else. It is understood that the seal- 

 fishers about Bass's Straits keep it in their huts, 

 where it is not only as tame as a dog, but a great deal 

 tamer, inasmuch as it is perfectly indifferent to the 

 appearance of strangers. It is not of course to an- 

 swer any of the purposes of a dog that so dull 

 and passive an animal is kept, but rather to answer 

 those of a pig. The flesh of the wombat is consider- 

 able in quantity, and said to be more juicy, more 

 tender, and every way better in quality than that of 

 any other marsupial animal, and the animal itself is 

 certainly more easily taken than any known species 

 of game. For these reasons it has sometimes been 

 proposed that Australia should send the wombat to 

 Europe to become a domestic animal, as some slight 

 return for the European animals which constitute a 

 very important portion of the wealth of the colonists. 

 Two live ones were once in the French museum, but 

 they did not live long, and it is exceedingly doubtful 

 whether so very simple an animal could be kept in a 

 European farm-yard, as the poultry would be very 

 apt to peck at it, and the pigs to trample it to 

 death. 



The geographical range of this animal appears to 

 be very limited, being confined to some part of the 

 shores of Bass's Straits, and to the islands situated 

 there. It appears, also, that it is now very rare com- 

 pared with what it was when those Straits were first 

 discovered ; and it seems to be in rapid progress 

 towards extinction, so that, as we have said, an entire 

 genus, and indeed an order, will be blotted out from 

 the living inhabitants of the world. 



PHASEOLUS (Linnaeus). A large and useful 

 genus of climbing herbs, natives of many different 

 parts of the warmer parts of the world. The flowers 

 are diadelphous, and many of them very beautiful, the 

 genus belonging to Leguminosce. 



The kidney-beans are in every garden, and so well 

 known, that they need no description. There are 

 many species, and of both dwarfs and runners many 

 varieties. The young pods of the dwarfs are one of 

 our most delicate table vegetables ; and the scarlet or 

 rough runner, P. multiflorus, is one of the most useful 

 cottage garden products. 



PHASMID^E. An extraordinary family of or- 

 thopterous insects, belonging to the section Cursoria, 

 and distinguished by the more or less elongated form 

 of the body, exposed head, tarsi five-jointed, posterior 

 wings longitudinally folded, and fore legs simply 

 formed for walking, and not raptorial as in the Man- 

 tidcc ) with which family they were long united. We 

 have taken occasion in various instances of calling 

 attention to some of those curious resemblances which 

 exist between animals or tribes of animals of very 

 different structure ; but the creatures now under con- 

 sideration exhibit perhaps the most striking similarity 

 which could be desired between animals and vege- 

 tables. The author of this article has repeatedly been 

 asked, when showing his collections of these insects 

 to persons not versed in such matters, how he could 

 wish so far to deceive them by fastening together bits 

 of stick and old withered leaves, and patching them 

 into something of the shape of insects ! for the fact 

 is, that so completely do some of these creatures 

 resemble pieces of vegetables, that their ordinary 



names are walking-stick insects, leaf insects, an 

 mated leaves, &c.; and surely to see some of thei 

 arranged upon a twig as Donovan has arranged thei 

 in one of his plates of " Indian Entomology," the d( 

 ception is complete. But it is not alone in form the 

 this similarity exist?, but also in their colours, so tha 

 to adopt an interesting theory propounded by th 

 authors of the " Introduction to Entomology," . 

 would seem as though the Creator had impressed thes 

 forms and colours upon these creatures, in order t 

 guard them from the attacks of their enemies, wh 

 are thus deceived, mistaking them for portions of th 

 plants upon which they subsist. We are aware the 

 objections may be urged against this theory, and tht 

 these kinds of resemblances may be termed merel 

 freaks of nature ; but as we know that instances ma 

 be produced in which the precisely opposite effect 

 produced, namely, where predaceous creatures lyin 

 in wait for their prey are also hidden as it were froi 

 the sight of their victims by the like similarities ( 

 appearance, we cannot but think that concealment : 

 as much the object in one case as in the other. 



These insects are inhabitants of tropical ^climate 

 a very few species of comparatively small size bein 

 found in the south of Europe. They delight in n 

 maining stationary upon the branches or twigs of plant 

 The females are provided with a strong apparatu 

 enabling them to bury their eggs under the bark < 

 trees. According to the Rev. Lansdown Guildin< 

 who has published an interesting Memoir upo 

 Phasma cornutum in the Linnjran Transactions, tl: 

 insect remains tranquil all day, but at night it devoui 

 a great quantity of leaves ; its motion in walking 

 unsteady ; and when it loses one of its legs in tl; 

 larva state, the organ is reproduced, of a smaller siz 

 at the following moulting. The student must consu 

 the Synopsis of Phasmulaz, of Mr. G. R. Gray, ft 

 fuller details and a notice of the various species, di 

 tributecl into many sub-genera. The family is div 

 sible, as the names noticed above imply, into tw 

 groups or sub-families, Phasmidcs, with the bod 

 slender and stick-like, and the legs long ; and Phy 

 tides, with the body broad, very thin, ancUmore c 

 less leaf-like, and the legs short and dilated. Thes 

 two sub-families are divided into various generic an 

 sub-generic groups. In the Phasmidcs, some hav 

 the antennae very short (Bacillus, Latreille), whicl 

 as well as Bacteria, Latreille, consists of apteroi 

 species. The restricted genus Phasma comprise 

 those species which are winged, and possess ocell 

 Some of the species of this family are amongst son 



Bacteria fragilis. 



of the most gigantic of the insect tribes. That whic 

 we have above selected for our illustration of th 

 sub-family Phasmides is the Bacteria fragilis from Ne 

 Holland, described and figured in Mr. Gray's Synops 



