THE VICTORIAN KATURALIST. 157 



" Whether the mosquito prefers new blood, or whether it is 

 that after a time the liquid ceases to have the irritating effect on 

 the blood, I don't know, but it is a peculiar fact that a stranger 

 coming into a district infested with mosquitoes is always 

 severely attacked by these bloodthirsty demons." 



Next to the torture which it inflicts, its most annoying 

 peculiarities are the booming hum of its approach, its cunning, 

 its audacity, and the perseverance with which it renews its 

 attacks, however frequently repulsed. 



[The paper went on to give Westwood's identification of the 

 mosquito with the insect of the plague of flies of the Pentateuch, 

 and then gave a description cf the plague of mosquitoes in various 

 parts of the world, from Silvio Pellico, Livingstone, Humboldt, 

 Lord, and of the ancients from Xenophon, Hippocrates, and 

 Pliny.] 



DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW AUSTRALIAN PLANTS ; 



By Baron von Mueller, K.C.M.G., M. & Ph.D., F.R.S. 



(Continued.) 

 Rhododendron Lochae. 



Arborescent, somewhat scandent ; leaves persistent, mostly 

 whorled, some scattered, conspicuously stalked, flat, nearly ovafe, 

 rather blunt, glabrous, well veined, minutely scaly-dotted beneath ; 

 flowers rather large, in terminal umbelliform fascicles on 

 very conspicuous stalklets ; bracts cuneate or spatular-ovate, 

 glabrescent ; calyx rudimentary, oblique-patellar or sometimes 

 variously short-lobed ; corolla bright-red, glabrous but scaly- 

 dotted outside, shghtly hairy inside, the lower portion broadly 

 cylindrical, the upper portion bluntly five-lobed and conspicuously 

 veined ; stamens ten, slightly emerging from the corolla-tube \ 

 filaments short-hairy towards the base j anthers very small, 

 ellipsoid-cylindrical ; style nearly as long as the filaments, short- 

 hairy to about the middle ; indusium truncate ; stigma slightly 

 lobed ; fruit narrow-ellipsoid, about as long as the stalklet or 

 longer, short-hairy, five-celled; seeds conspicuously appendiculated. 



On the summit of Mount Bellenden-Ker, at an elevation of 

 about 5000 feet. W. Sayer and A. Davidson. 



This beautiful and singularly local plant, which attains a height 

 of twenty feet, is cognate to R. Javanirum, from which it differs 

 in longer petioles, blunter leaves, smooth pedicels, somewhat 

 smaller flowers, as well as more hairy style and fruit. In some 

 respects this Australian species approaches also R. Griffithianum, 

 but the disposition and colour of the flowers are very different. ' 

 From R. Celebicum it is easily distinguished by broader not acute 

 leaves with not concealed veins, by not scaly pedicels, by 

 mostly not narrow bracts, by larger lobes of the corolla and not 



