— 32 — 



erstes Geisselglied etwa '/e so lang als das zweite, dieses 

 so lang als 3 + 4. Hinterkopf skulpturlos. Mesonotum 

 mit goldgelbem, länglich dreieckigem Tomentfleck, jeder- 

 seits davon quergerieft. Schulterbeulen und der hinten 

 daranstossende Teil der Mesopleuren mit goldgelbem 

 Toment, ein ebensolcher grosser dreieckiger Toment- 

 fleck im unteren Teile der Mesopleuren, welche nach 

 dem Sternum hin gerundet sind. Sternum punktiert. 

 Scutellum zweibeulig, längs gerieft. Mittelsegment grob 

 quergerieft, jederseits an Basis und Apex ein goldgelber 

 Tomentfleck. Beine schwarz, die Coxen II und III 

 hinten goldgelb tomentiert. Abdomen mit stahlblauem 

 Schimmer; Stiel mitunter dunkelrot, wenigstens auf der 

 Unterseite, mitunter einfarbig schwarz. Tegulae pech- 

 braun; Flügel glashell mit schwach verdunkeltem Aussen- 

 rande. Länge 19 mm. 



Argentinien, Provinz Catamarca. Andalgala (C. 

 Bruch leg.). 



.57 (56.9) 



The Old Inhabitants 

 of a Jerusalem Garden. 



by A. H. SwintOH. 

 (Continuation). 



In the garden there stood a pear tree such as a Eoman 

 merchant retired from business would long to graft, 

 and another near at hand, hung with fruit and probably 

 bird' sown, grew out of a hawthorn, Crataegus-Azarolus ; 

 pirum a pear, was a word understood alike by Jew and 

 Eoman ; the pear tree seems adapted to a dry soil. Devon- 

 shire heat and moisture produces on good ground monster 

 docks and dandelions, brobdinag ribwort and greater 

 plantains, and in the drains buttercups put forth gigantic 

 leaves: at Jerusalem it is natural to talk of the water 

 of life and of the habitable world founded on the floods, 

 for along the drainage of the sea coast, where there is 

 water under the sand, depend the large grape bunches 

 of Caesarea, beneath which Schulze supped, and where 

 lately Mr. Hanouer discovered the Lilium pancratium 

 growing wild; the ostrich-egg pomegranates and lemon- 

 oranges of Jaffa, and the apples of Ascalon. Here on 

 the uplands the apple did not thrive among the trees of 

 the orchard, but presently there resounded a cry of 

 Mismish! when a black man came on the scene with 

 apricots for sale, the fruit of the Prunus armeniaca, from 

 the good trees that flourish beside the pools of Solomon 

 or ever gushing fountain of the Baptist, nigh at hand; 

 the apples of gold that graced the baskets, or some say 

 leaves of silver: a village in the south country was known 

 as the House of Apples. A fig tree' hung with green figs 

 whose ancestors may have populated the gardens of 

 Bethpage and indicated by their fresh leaves that sum- 

 mer was nigh, had not escaped the notice of my landlady; 

 the barren fig tree had no fruit when the Jewish Passover 

 had arrived; it might have been the end of April, and 

 the green figs ripen early. 



On the 14 th of May a north-westerly wind rolled 

 clouds of yellow sand over Jerusalem and the sun shone 



like an electric light hung on high. In a small vineyard 

 attached to the garden stood an almond tree already 

 buzzing with buprestide beetles, black but comely, and 

 so unlike their ornamental Indian relatives; and in the 

 partition wall the Oriental Hornets, Vespa orientalis, 

 had established a colony; they were more of a chocolate 

 colour than the English hornets and they passed much 

 of their time sitting on the vine leaves in the sunshine in 

 company with a large Wasp Fly, Laphria dizones, that 

 deceptively resembled them. Their wings were more 

 rounded and they were less dashing than the English 

 hornets, and I never understood how they could put to 

 flight two kings of the Amorites. Against the wall grew 

 an elder bush that had more stalks to its cymes than the 

 English one, in which they number five, its flowers of 

 ivory white seemed to be scorched brown by the summer 

 sun, and my landlady, who wished to make elder wine, 

 wondered why it never bore fruit : finally the barren elder 

 was brought to the notice of Dr. Post, author of the 

 Syrian Flora. 



A pomegranate, Punica granatum, which in days 

 of old furnished a drink at a place called Gath-Bimmon, 

 near Jaffa, flaunted a soon dropping flower of crimson 

 velvet. Haggai said, of a bad season, 'that the vine, 

 fig tree, pomegranate and olive, had not brought forth', 

 and Thomson remarks that the olive is wont to cast its 

 unripe fruit; Heroditus reported that no olives grew in 

 Babylonia, and the Eabshakeh of Sennacherib only tells 

 the Jews to expect -corn and wine in Assyria, where 

 venison, hares and black partridges were not wanting. 

 On one of the Assyrian slabs in the British Museum an 

 eunuch may be seen carrying locusts stuck on thorns to 

 a banquet at Nineveh, and certain species were appre- 

 ciated by the Jews. One, the leaping beetle of Leviticus, 

 it has been ingeniously suggested was the Truxalis 

 nasuta and its kind, known to the Greeks as a cari- 

 cature of the snake-feeding ichneumon adored by the 

 Egyptians; these may be seen stalking like spectres on 

 the Jaffa sands among the blue-leaved Salvia Horminum 

 and Petunculus shells, and they are met with as far 

 south as the Pacific islands and Australia. At a dinner 

 party they must have resembled the something small 

 of Lord Dundreary — a shrimp. Another, the Salaam 

 with a smooth head, I felt sure I recognised in the Ere- 

 mobia cisti with the semblance of a bald pate that I 

 mistook for a small frog when I saw it leap up on the 

 cliffs of Jaffa the beautiful. 



(to be continued). 



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1 



