378 Foreign Notices: — France, Asia Minor. 



bein"' made of so light a material, and from its simplicity of construction, it is 

 not easily displaced or put out of order ; and the flower, not being confined 

 within anything, is less liable to be damaged by coming in contact with any 

 substance that would injure the petals. It requires to be painted to preserve 

 it from decay, and if the outside be made green, and the inside white, the 

 appearance of them would not be disagreeable, and the insects lurking inside 

 would be easily perceived. (C. F. ; in Gard. Chron., March 20. p. 181.) 



Nets dyed Blue, German gardeners have found from long experience to 

 be more effective in deterring small birds, especially sparrows, than nets of any 

 other colour. That blue should be a repellant, is no more incredible than that 

 red should be an attractive, colour to birds ; and that this latter is so, every 

 fowler can bear evidence. Larks, it would appear, were formerly attracted to 

 snares by red glass. {Charles Bathurst, Jan. 1841; in Garc?. C/^^•o«., Jan. 30. 



P- "''O-) . . . . , 



Woodlice among Orchidacece. — Havmg seen many enquiries respecting the 



best mode of destroying woodlice among Orchidacese, I beg to offer the fol- 

 lowing mode. Take a potato, and cut it in half ; then hollow it out, and place 

 it on the surface of the pot of the plant infested, and you will find in the 

 course of a few hours the potato nearly full of the insects. The above method 

 I have tried myself with Orchidaceae, these being troubled with them more than 

 any other plant, and in the course of a fortnight 1 found I had but very few 

 left. — T. Wooster. Albmi Road Nursery, Jjml 30. 1S41. 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 



FRANCE. 



New herbaceous Peonies. — A number of seedlings have been raised by M. 

 Guerin Modeste, 84. Rue des Couronnes, at Belleville, near Paris, of which 

 the following six are said to be of a superior description : — P. officinalis speciosa 

 striata, P. o. «nemonefl6ra striata, P. o. elegans, P. o. Victoire Modeste, 

 P. o. pulcherrima, and P. o. lutea variegata. Flowers of some of these kinds 

 were sent to us by M, Guerin Modeste; but, though the stems were passed 

 through corks into bottles of water, and the bottles fixed upright in a box, 

 so that the petals could not touch any of the sides, in short, though they were 

 packed in the very best manner, yet, when they arrived at Bayswater, every 

 petal had dropped off. — Cond.. 



ASIA MINOR. 



Chips of Firewood for giving Light. — This use of firewood, cleft or torn 

 into strips, and especially of the root of the tree, is well known, and is described 

 in an instructive essay latel}' published by Mr. Arthur Aiken, " On artificial 

 Light from solid Substances, and the Manufacture of Candles." (Trans. Soc, 

 Arts, 1839, vol. iii. p. 4,5.) But the account here given by Mr. Fellows, 

 from his own observation, enables us to form a much more exact and accurate 

 idea of the practice. "When compared with the passages referred to by 

 Mr. Aiken, and with those which I shall now cite from Theophrastus, it 

 appears to me to warrant the inference, that this method of obtaining arti- 

 ficial light has prevailed in Asia Minor for nearly 3000 years. According to 

 Theophrastus, the best tree for yielding touchwood was the Peuke, which 

 is still called Peukos by the Greeks of Asia Minor, and is the Pinus mariti- 

 ma of Linnaeus. (The Rev. James Yates; in Appendix to Fellows's Journey 

 in Asia Minor in 1838.) The passage to which the above note refers is as 

 follows : — 



" I think that I have not mentioned that the light generally used in this part of 

 the country, even in the large town of Kootaya and the other towns through 

 which I have passed, is a chip of the fir tree. The people make a wound 



