Miscellaneous. 44.5 
as Mr. Gray, a few of the former impressions of some of the 
brightest moments of his life ; while the fact that he did not live to 
see this parting effort fully realized, but died as the last sheet was 
passing through the press, will more than suffice to ensure a chari- 
table judgment from even his most captious readers. Harder and 
more enduring work than this Mr. Clark did, and he did it well. 
From his earliest years he had been a patient student of Nature, 
and, catholic-minded, had delighted in a// her works; and he was 
not only a careful describer, but likewise (which is even more im- 
portant still) a genuine and enthusiastic col/ector—gaining his know- 
ledge, perhaps, more from the woods and streams than from books. 
His earliest partiality was for plants; he then took to birds; then, 
with considerable energy, to spiders; afterwards to butterflies and 
moths, of which he formed a large and valuable collection ; and, last 
of all, and most successfully, to beetles. It was, indeed, to the Coleo- 
ptera that the best labours of his life were devoted ; and with the great 
departments of the Phytophaga and the water-beetles his name will 
be associated (in connexion with many admirable papers, catalogues, 
and monographs) as long as entomology continues to be studied, and 
cultivated as a science. Like many before him, he has passed from 
among us ; but he has left a record behind which will, and must, endure. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Mermis nigrescens. By Witui1am Mitten, A.L.S. 
Tue garden-hairworm has received so much attention this year 
and so much has been written respecting it by various observers 
since the past summer, without, however, clearing up some obscure 
portions of its history, that I have been tempted to contribute my 
mite in aid of its elucidation. 
After showers, in the month of June, the hairworm has been 
repeatedly brought to me as a curiosity for the microscope; but my 
own practical acquaintance with it commenced about eight years 
ago, when, having grafted a number of small plants of whitethorn, 
about a foot high, with pears, I was continually annoyed by finding 
the bursting buds eaten off during the night. On visiting them 
with a lantern, after a showery evening, when I expected to catch 
_ the depredators, I was somewhat startled to see on several of my 
grafts the hairworm, which, adhering to the top of the scion by, I 
presume, the posterior portion of its body, supported the remainder 
in the air; and all were moving freely in a kind of gyrating motion, 
~as if ready to seize a prey. No trace of the creatures could be found 
by daylight; and I did not impute to them the destruction of my 
buds. I have since seen the hairworm, in the very early morning, 
on the wet leaves of bushes four feet above the surface of the earth.. 
I have also dug it from about eighteen inches below the surface in 
the early spring: in this instance I found two individuals coiled to- 
gether in the hole made by the common earthworm; these were of 
a paler, somewhat dirty cream-colour ; and I kept them alive for a 
time in a bottle, but they eventually dried up. 
