78 



JOURNAL OE HORTICTTLTUItE AND COTIAG-E GARDENER. [ January 27, 1863. 



for a mild growing time is by no meana natural with short dull 

 days and long nights. 



TEMPEEATTTBE AND RAINFALL AT FROME. 



1862. 



January. ... 

 February , 

 March .... 



April 



Slay 



June 



■July 



August .... 

 SeDtember. 

 October... 

 November, 

 December , 



Total 







so 



49 

 51 

 6-1 

 68 

 67 

 68 

 69 

 67 

 64 

 63 

 54 



■= 3 



40 



434- 



50i 



60 



614 



63 



64 



62 



55 



43 



20 

 15 

 IS 

 25 

 37 

 40 

 37 

 36 

 32 

 25 

 10 

 28 



2 p. 



5" 



32 



34 



35 



38J 



45 2 



47 



47 



49 



47 



44 



30 



37 





18 

 10 

 18 

 14 

 15 

 16 

 18 

 11 

 14 

 24 

 11 

 18 



a d os 

 2"- ft 

 S "fl 



3.32 

 0.31 

 5.33 

 3.32 

 5.00 

 3.08 

 2.35 

 2.00 

 2.77 

 4!40 

 1.05 

 2.08 



;.3S 



16 

 14 



11 



5 



Negretti and Zambra's patent maximum thermometer in the 

 shade, 4 feet from the ground. 



Minimum thermometer tested by the above, 18 inches from 

 the ground, exposed. 



Bain-gauge 3 inches above the ground. — The Doctor's Boy, 

 Frame, Somerset. 



EFFECTS OF CROSSING. 



I never saw anything of the kind mentioned by Mr. Ander- 

 son-Henry at page 46 ; but Gartner and Herbert both give 

 instances where more seeds are fertilised by a congener than by 

 the plant itself. Dr. Herbert says (" Amaryllidacese," 351) :— 

 " I had a pod from Crinum capense fertilised by revolutum, in 

 which every ovule produced a seedling plant, which I never saw 

 to occur in a case of its natural fecundation." On the same 

 page it is said that Gartner "cites from Kolreuter, that Datura 

 Metel and lsevis have each about six hundred seeds in a capsule ; 

 he found that a capsule from one of them fertilised by the other 

 contained 640." — D. Beaton. 



DISTRESSED LANCASHIRE WORKINGMEN 

 BOTANISTS. 



I HATE received, from the same lady who sent me the first 

 let of clothing, 100 pairs of socks and Btockings, 12 pairs of 

 cotton sheets, and 35f yards of tweed for petticoats. This gift 

 will enable me to give to each person 2 pairs of stockings, for 

 I have acted on the following plan :— Where I found two grown- 

 up females, I gave them 3 pairs of stockings between them, and 

 the same with males, iu order to make the money go as far as 

 possible. 



Next week, the botanists who have received aid in this hour 

 of trial from your many kindhearted readers, propose to thank 

 both you and them for such beneficial sympathy, and, with one 

 exception, timely aid. There is one family, who, I am sorry 

 to say, starved too long to preserve their health, and now three 

 of the family are ill, and one has gone. The doctor who attends 

 them assured me that their illness had been brought on by in- 

 sufficient food. The parents had done everything they could to 

 keep from the parish, and the father had only had parish relief 

 two weeks before I made my appeal in your paper, though he 

 hod been out of work ten months, and had a wife with six 

 young children to keep. This family has been my heaviest 

 charge, and will be for some time, for there is no sign of the 

 mill starting at which the father worked.— John Hague, 36, 

 Mount Street, AsMon-nnder-Lyne. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETING. 



The January Meeting of the Entomological Society was held 

 on the 5th mat., the President occupying the chair, and was 

 •well attended, considering the season of the year and state of 

 the weather. 



Among the donations received since the last Meeting, were 



the publications of the Royal Society, and continuations of 

 Kroyer's new Natural History Journal published at Copenhagen 

 and Mr. Hewitson's fine work on exotic Butterflies. 



The energetic Treasurer of the Linncan and Horticultural 

 Societies, W. W. Saunders, Esq., exhibited some interesting 

 varieties of Galls : one of considerable size, a Root Gall, found 

 at the root of Oak trees near Reigate ; another of the Bize of a 

 double fist, found also on the roots of a tree iu the Zoolu country, 

 South Africa, by Mr. Cooper, together with a third kind, which 

 grows in clusters like grapes on the stems of a Bpecies of Cissus, 

 also in the Zoolu country. He also exhibited a species of 

 Bruchus, which lives in the beautiful seeds of Erythrina Saunder- 

 sonii in Natal, each seed being infested by from one to four 

 specimens of these obnoxious insects. 



Mr. S. Stevens exhibited a monstrous specimen of Papilio 

 pammon, collected in the Sulu Islands by Mr. Wallace, one of 

 the hind wings of which was not more than half the normal 

 size. Also a fine species of the very rare genus of Beetles, 

 Psalidognathus. 



Mr. Laing exhibited a beautiful green variety of Ellopia 

 prasinaria taken on palings at Charlton ; and Mr. Bibbs, some 

 remarkable varieties of Butterflies and Moths taken near 

 Worcester, including a suffused dark specimen of Vanessa 

 urticse, a nearly white variety of Arctia caja, two varieties of 

 Clisiocampa lanestris with a large red spot on the wings. 



Professor Westwood exhibited a pouch or bag of a strong 

 leathery texture, having the outside of floss silk, formed by a 

 colony of caterpillars (of some kind of Moth ?) on trees in 

 tropical Africa, communicated by Vernon Wollaston, Esq. 

 IN umerous places of exit were formed in this bag, each having 

 the threads of which it is formed convergent, as in the cocoon of 

 the Emperor Moth. Also a number of preparations of mined 

 leaves fixed upon glass, showing the caterpillars within the 

 mines, when held against the light, and which had been prepared 

 by Mr. S. Stone, of Brighthampton. 



General Sir J. B. Hearsey exhibited a collection of the 

 Sphingidoe of India, containing thirty-two species, several of 

 which appeared to be undescribed ; and Mr. Percy Wormold a 

 new British species of Trichoptera, being the Limnephilus 

 nobilis of Kolenati, taken at Buislip, Middlesex. 



The following memoirs were read : — 



1. Descriptions of a number of new species of the Coleo- 

 pterous genus Catascopus collected by Mr. Wallace, being a 

 supplement to a monograph on the genus recently communicated 

 to the Society by Mr. W. W. Saunders. 



2. A memoir of considerable extent on the geographical distri- 

 bution and range of the Butterflies of Europe, by Mr. Kirby. 



3. A memoir on Omalium riparium, and two species of 

 Homalota, genera belonging to the family Staphylinida;, by 

 Mr. G. B. Waterbouse. 



4. On the descriptions of Ants of Equatorial Africa contained 

 in M. Du Chaillu's book of travels by Mr. P. Smith. In this 

 work ten kinds of Ants are described, and accounts given of 

 their habits, the most remarkable being that of the Bastrykooyah 

 Ant, a most ferocious species which travels about in large armies, 

 devouring everything which falls in its way, fearing not even to 

 attack and kill the Python itself. From an examination of the 

 accounts given of this family of insects by different authors, it 

 became evident that M. Du Chaillu's account was concocted 

 from Mr. Savage's history of an Ant inhabiting the same 

 country, Anomma rubellum ; whilst M. Du Chaillu's illustration 

 of the species was a copy of a figure of some species of Termes, 

 and did not even represent an Ant. 



5. Descriptions of a number of new species of Nocturnal 

 Lepidoptera, collected in South Africa by Mr. d'TTrban, by Mr. 

 Francis Walker. 



6. A memoir on Lucanus Lama, of Olivier, and its synonymy 

 by Major F. Parry. 



SPARROW-KILLING NOT MURDER. 



I hate often seen both letters and articles in the London 

 newspapers many times, and also quotations from French 

 journals, condemning and ridiculing English farmers for destroy- 

 ing their best friends, the sparrows. I am not a farmer, but I 

 do know the difference between a house sparrow and a hed?e 

 sparrow — the latter being really the farmers' friend, but the 

 former his most destructive enemy. The male and female hedge 

 sparrow closely resemble the hen house sparrow, and few but 



