342 



NATURE 



[February 9, 1899 



Mr. Crawshay's interesting letter ilnes not aftect the 

 question of Tinea vasleila and its feeding on horns. Reference 

 to the authorities quoted in your issue of September 15 list, or 

 to the accounts of Lord Walsingham {Trans. Enl. Soc. I.ond., 

 1881, p. 238; id. Proc, 1S81, p. viii., 1882, p. xx.), and Mr. 

 K. Triinen ( Trans. S. Afr. Phil. Soc, iii. p. 24), shows that 

 the moth has been bred repeatedly from horns, and in one case, 

 from a hoof of the troop-horse killed with the Prince Imperial 

 in Zululand, 'and by naturalists whose competence is beyond 

 question. Recently M. de Joannis has described (Bull. Soc. 

 Enl. Frame, 1S97, p. 109), the emergence from buffalo and 

 ox-horns in Algeria of a large number of examples of a new 

 Tineid moth, Tincola infuscatclla, together with a few' specimens 

 ol Blahophanes nigricantella. Mill., B.imelta, Hiibn., and TncJio- 

 phaga hifartitella. Rag. , the larvs; of which moths had apparently 

 also fed upon the horn-substance. 



The horn-feeding habit cannot be impeached ; but I do not 

 regard the evidence hitherto brought forward as to the horns of 

 a living ruminant being attacked, as absolutely conclusive. 

 With respect to infestatinn of horns of newly-killed animals 

 exposed for sale in African market-places, it has, I believe, 

 been stated (although I am unable to give any reference thereto) 

 that the natives are in the habit of " faking " old horns for sale 

 by anointing their bases with fresh bloi>d, 



Mr. Crawshay's communication is of importance, however, 

 as calling attention to the existence of other horn-attacking 

 insects. The beetles which he has forwarded are examples of 

 Necrohia riiftfes (or an allied species — his "green beetle") and 

 a Dcrnustcs, which cannot be identified from the poor material 

 sent. The larv;e are those of the Dermcstes. 



It is not news to myself, nor, I imagine, to other entomologists, 

 that thess beetles are often as common in uncleaned horns or 

 skulls of African animals, as they are in many bone-houses in 

 this country. When the skeleton of the African elephant, now 

 in the Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Cam- 

 bridge, was unpacked, these two (or similar) species fell out of 

 the bones literally in pints. I question, however, whether 

 either of them attacks horns from which the cores and all matter 

 other than the horn-substance have been removed. That the 

 latter was extensively burrowed in Mr. Crawshay's examples is 

 not by itself a proof, for that remarkable and destructive insect, 

 Dermesles viilpiniis, has the habit, as an adult larva, of attack- 

 ing any substance that will yield to its jaws, not for food, but 

 for the purpose of forming a suitable nidus in which to pupate. 

 It is thus sometimes exceedingly injurious to woodwork, as in a 

 case, by no means isolated, ob.served by myself in 1890, where 

 it occurred in great abundance in the bone-sheds of a soap-works, 

 and destroyed all the timbers so rapidly that three new roofs 

 were required in the space of a year, even the scaffold-poles 

 used in their erection being damaged. The fir rafters were 

 hollowed out along the layers of the spring-wood into very thin 

 and brittle concentric lamin;e ; and the damage had much re- 

 semblance to that of the most destructive species of Termites. 

 The species, now cosmopolitan, hut perhaps of Oriental origin, 

 had been imported into the works in a cargo of Indian bones, and 

 was never abundant or injurious so long as boiling was resorted 

 to for extraction of grease from the bone.s. Their multiplication 

 dated from the introduction of a method of fat extraction by a 

 solvent which left behind the fragments of muscle, cartilage, &c. , 

 adhering to the bones, as well as the gelatin. It was pointed 

 out to me, and, though incredulous, I satisfied myself of the 

 truth of the ol'seivation, that the larva? occasionally enlarged the 

 "blow-holes'- in the friable brickwork of the sheds in order to 

 turn them into |iupal chambers. On one occasion a workman 

 left in the sheds a while-spotted blue handkerchief : by the 

 next morning every white spot had been gnawed out of it. 



Not only is Dcmustes vuipiniis injurious to hides, leather, 

 furs, bones and, secondarily, to woodwork. In India it is 

 destructive to stored silkcuc".ins. I have examined examples 

 of, I believe, this identical s| ccies unwrapped from cat-mum- 

 mies, and have received it hom I long Kong, where it had 

 damaged bunting flags in the Xaval Depot. This injury was, 

 no doulit, due to the burrowing of larv;v which had bred in 

 provisions or the like stored mar the flags. 



A still stranger instance of its habits has been lately com- 

 municated to me by Sir 11. Truenian Wood, to whom a corre- 

 spondent, a provision preserver in Australia, sent specimens as 

 examples " of a grub or weevil which derived its sole sustenance 

 from salt." Accompanying them were lumps of .salt (agglomera- 

 tions of fine crystals such as table-salt is a|>i 1.1 f.irm), which 



NO. 1528 VOL. 59] 



were bored through by the insects in such a manner as to leatf 

 any non-scientific person to suppose that it had actually been 

 done for the purpose of feeding ! 



Mr. Crawshay's mention of cocoons on the outside of the 

 horns is not easily reconciled with what is known of the habits 

 of Necrobia or Dtrmcsles. The species of the former genus, like 

 other Clerids, proljably form a cocoon, but are unlikely to do 

 so in an exposed situation. The pupae of Dermesles are found 

 in the above-mentioned chambers enclosed in the split larval' 

 skin. Walter V. H. Blandkord. 



London, January 27. 



Indian Solpugae or Pseudo Spiders. 



In your issue of April 28 last there is an interesting article by 

 my friend Mr. K. I. I'ocock, of the British Museum, on the 

 Solpug.x (Pseudo .'ipiders). In that article he does me the 

 honour to refer to certain information I gave him, and to my 

 having allowed numbers of them to bite me to prove to the 

 natives of India that they were not poisonous. Mr. Pocock 

 gives the native name as I gave it to him phonetically as "Jerry- 

 manglum." I have since found that the correct spelling of the 

 word is " Jalamundalum," which is used in the Tamil and 

 Telegoo (Dravidian) languages to denote the larger spiders 

 (P.vcilotheria), the Whip Scorpions, and generally to any animal 

 of the kind which ihey dread. The derivation is from " Jala," 

 which means heat, fever, or perspiration ; and " Mundalum,"- 

 a period, usually forty-seven days ; the belief being that a bite 

 of one of the spiders, Galeodes or Whip Scorpions, will give 

 fever that may last for forty-seven days. A friend, at my re- 

 quest, got this information from a Brahman B.A. of the Madras 

 University, and I think it is interesting enough to deserve a 

 place in your columns. II. R. P. Carver. 



20 Priory Road, Bedford Park, Chiswick, W., January 30. 



Colouring of Plants. 



On reading the very interesting and suggestive article on 

 " Experiments on the Autumn Colouring of Plants," by E. 

 Overton, in Natirk for January 26, it occurred to me that the 

 following observation might be of interest. While I was in 

 Switzerland last summer, I noticed that different plants of 

 Sempei-ivum aradinoideum, L., growing under apparently very 

 similar conditions, differed much in colour, the leaves of .some 

 being very red, especially at the tips and on the dorsal surface ; 

 and those of others being of a whitish green, almost or quite 

 untinged with red. Wishing to see if any correlation existed 

 between colour and assimilation, I collected two or three 

 specimens of each kind, planted them in boxes, and, after 

 keeping them on a sunny window-sill for some days, so that 

 the environment might be as far as possible exactly alike for all, 

 I tested them for starch by Sachs' iodine method, and found 

 that the leaves coloured by anthocyanin contained far more 

 starch than those without the red colouring mailer. From this 

 it will be seen that my results, so far as they go, appear to differ 

 somewhat from the conclusions drawn by Mr. Overton. 

 Perhaps, however, I ought to add that, unfortunately, I did not 

 examine the leaves carefully to see whether or not the red 

 colouring matter was confined to the epidermis, or extended 

 also to the mesophyll, though my impression is that in some 

 cases, at any rate, it did so. My plants were gathered at the 

 end of July or beginning of August. May Rathbone. 



Backwood, Neston, Cheshire, January 30. 



THE ORIGINS OF THE LINES OF a CYGNI.^ 

 "IITHEN engaged in the classific.ition of stars, ac- 



*" cording to their photographic sjicctra, in 1S93- 1 

 came across two sets of lines of unknown origin, one in 

 the hottest stars, the other in stars of intermediate 

 temperature. 



After the discovery of a terrestrial source of helium by 

 Prof. Ramsay, I showed in a series of seven notes com- 

 municated to the Royal Society,' May-September 1895, 



* Paper rc.-id .-^t the- Royal Society on Febru.'try 3, by Sir Norman 

 Lockyer, K C.li., F.R.S. 



a Phil Trans., A, vol. 184, p. 675. 



■1 1st Note. Koy. SiK. Proc., vol. 58, p. 67; and, ifiii., vol. 58, p. 113; 

 3rd, i*/rf., vol. 58, p. ii6 ; 4th, I'W./., vol. 58, p. iqj ; sth, /War., vol. 58, 

 p. ig3 ; 6ih, lAi'i/., vol. 59, p. 4 ; 7ih, iWrf., vol. 59, p. 342. 



