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Miscellaneous. 317 
_ tribe. The difficulty in the case of the hop-aphis has always been 
to know where the eggs from which the flies proceed in spring, are 
placed by the gravid females in autumn. This could not be on the 
hop-plant, which dies down yearly to the roots. But the mystery 
has been solved by Mr. Walker, who has found that it is on the 
sloe-tree or black-thorn (Prunus spinosa) that the female deposits 
her eggs in autumn, which are there hatched in spring, and the 
second generation being produced with wings, flies to the hop- 
plants and establishes itself on the leaves, which, owing to the well- 
known rapid increase of these insects, it soon covers and exhausts of 
the sap. Nowif the hop-aphis does not deposit its eggs on any 
other shrub or plant than the sloe, as Mr. Walker believes, it is 
evident that, to secure the hops in any district from the hop-aphis, 
it is only necessary to destroy all the sloe-trees, which, as they are 
found chiefly in hedges, and there in no great number, would be no 
difficult matter. And if, from the escape of a part of the sloe-trees, 
and the flight of some of the hop-aphides from distant quarters, a 
few of the female aphides were still found on the hop-plants in spring, 
nothing would be easier, as I ascertained by experiments in hop- 
grounds in Worcestershire in 1838*, than to clear them from every 
one of these assailants, at a very trifling expense, by employing 
women and children, by means of step-ladders, to crush every aphis 
found, by pressing them and the leaf between the thumb and fore- 
finger, so as to destroy the flies without injuring the texture of the 
leaf. When it is considered that the extirpation of the hop-aphis 
would in some years save 200,000/. to the revenue, and three or 
four times as much to the hop-growers, it is evident that this is a 
matter worth attention, and that the science which can effect this 
Saving is no trifling one.—F'rom the Address delivered by the Pre- 
sident W. Spence, Esq., F.R.S., at the Anniversary Meeting of the 
Entomological Society of London, Jan. 22, 1849. 
Description of a new Mezican Quail. By Wittiam Gampet, M.D. 
Ortyx thoracicus. With a full, somewhat pointed crest, the 
feathers of which are black, obscurely mixed with dull brown and 
rufous. Nape mottled with black and bright rufous, and traversed 
by two interrupted white lines, which commence of a cinereous 
colour about the front and pass over the eyes. Throat and cheeks 
pale cinereous, each feather with a narrow black margin. Sides of 
neck, breast and sides pale rufous ; deepest on sides of neck, where 
the feathers have a few scattered black spots. Lower part of belly 
and vent white. Under tail-coverts rusty white, mottled with black. 
Tail very short and rounded, its colour dark brown, with freckled 
irregular bars of rusty white. Lower part of back and upper tail- 
coverts irregularly variegated with different shades of gray, fulvous 
and black ; upper part of back dark rufous, the centres of the feathers 
grayish, and traversed by fine, irregular, dusky lineations. Wings 
and scapulars beautifully variegated with black, rufous and gray ; 
* Introd. to Entomology, 6th edit., vol. i. p. 149. 
