304 



JOUENAL OF HOBTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[ AprU 27, 1871. 



on a dark nigbt, obtain their bearings by feeling the position of 

 the leaves. Longfellow mentions it in " Evangeline " : — 



*' Look at this delicate plant, that lifts its head from the meadow. 

 See how its leaves all point to the north, as true as the magnet ; 

 It is a Compass Plant," &c. 



The plant is, however, coarse and stout, and far from " deli- 

 cate " and " fragile," while the leaves are, in reality, vertical, 

 and present their edges north and south. The true cause of 

 this so-ealled " polarity " is the subject of a short article by 

 Mr. Witney in the American Naturalist, from which it appears 

 that from the statements of numerous observers there can be 

 little doubt that on the prairies the leaves of this plant do 

 assume a meridional bearing ; and the cause assigned for this 

 by Dr. Gray is undoubtedly the correct one — viz., that both 

 sides of the leaf are equally sensitive to light. It only remains 

 to be shown what renders its two sides thus equally sensitive. 

 It is well known that two sides of a leaf usually diiier in struc- 

 ture, that the number of stomata, or breathing-holes, is much 

 greater on the under than the upper surface, and that the tissue 

 of the upper is denser than that of the lower stratum. As the 

 two surfaces of the leaf of Silphium laciniatum appeared some- 

 what alike. Dr. Gray suggested that it would be well to examine 

 the leaf microscopically in order to see if it corresponded with 

 ordinary leaves in the above respects, or with truly vertical 

 leaves, the two surfaces of which are usually similar, or nearly 

 so ; also to compare with it the leaves of other species of 

 Silphium, in which no tendency to assume a north and south 

 position is observed. The results of this examination gave the 

 number of the stomata of the Compass Plant leaf as exactly the 

 same on both surfaces, while those of three other species varied 

 considerably. The cellular structure of the leaf of S. lacinia- 

 tum appears to be homogeneous throughout, and these observa- 

 tions show " that the meridional position of the edges of the 

 leaf is to be explained by the structure of the two surfaces, 

 which being identical, at least in the important respect of the 

 number of the stomata, seek an equal exposure to the light ; 

 the mean position of equal exposure, in northern latitudes, 

 being that in which the edges are presented north and south, 

 the latter obtaining the maximum, the former the minimum of 

 illumination." — {English Mechanic and Chemist.) 



TREES AND SHRUBS versus HARES AND 

 RABBITS. 



Another winter is past, and it has left its traces behind in 

 frozen, destroyed vegetables, and browned shrubs. There are 

 other sources of trouble to a gardener besides that caused by 

 the severity of frost to the tonderest subjects of his charge, 

 and amongst them may be mentioned the damage done by 

 hares and rabbits to trees and shrubs when the ground is for 

 weeks covered with a deep mantle of snow. It is but natural 

 that such animals should in a winter like the past have their 

 appetites so sharpened by an enforced fast that they are glad 

 to take what they would at other times disdain ; cut off from 

 their ordinary food by a deep and long-continued covering of 

 snow, they are compelled to take anything that will sustain 

 their existence. I know it is the conviction of some, that hares 

 and rabbits will eat the shoots and the bark of every tree 

 coming in their way in times of severe frost and snow. Such, 

 however, I have not found confirmed by fact. With us there 

 are trees and shrubs the shoots and bark of which the hares 

 and rabbits eat, and there are others which they do not touch. 

 One of yonr correspondents, in the autumn of last year ; cau- 

 tioned your readers against being " misled by lists of trees and 

 shrubs not liable to be attacked by hares and rabbits," alleging 

 that there are none, or very few, they will not eat in severe 

 weather. Now, as I had given in this .Journal a list of trees 

 and shrubs that hares and rabbits had not interfered with, I 

 felt it incumbent on me at the time to say that your corre- 

 spondent's experience was totally at variance with mine, but I 

 thought it better to wait and see what another winter would 

 do, and having had an unusually sharp one, yet not keen 

 enough to make hares and rabbits eat every tree and shrub they 

 could get at, I have the greater confidence in approaching this 

 subject. 



Trees and Shrubs of which Hares and Rabbits have eaten the 

 shoots andgnatced the hark during the winter of 1870-71; Snoio on 

 the ground liflij days ; greatest cold 8°. — Apples and Crabs ; in 

 many places Appls trees of considerable size and age have been 

 completely destroyed. Laburnums, even those gas-tarred, were 

 clean barked. Poplar, Ash, Oak, Lime, Larch, Si:otch Fir, 

 Spruce, AuBtriau Pine, the leaflets eaten close in, but neither 



the points of the shoots nor the bark taken. Holly, some of 

 the variegated, 6 feet high, cut down to 18 inches; leaves^ 

 branches, and all eaten ; not a tree of less than ten years' growth 

 left without barking as high up as the hares and rabbits could 

 reach, and as low as the padded snow line. Laurustinus cut 

 ofi to the snow line, the bare shoots beiag as well done as 

 possible. Common Laurels shared the same fate as the Laurus- 

 tinus, and Aueubas show only below the snow ; Broom taken 

 entirely, and Thorns, Chinese Arbor- Vits, Weigela rosea, Coto- 

 neaster frigida, and C. Simmuudsii. 



Trees and Shrubs which Hares and Kabbits have not eaten or 

 barked. — Beech, common, purple, and copper; Sycamore, 

 Horsechestnut, Bird Cherry (Carasas Padua), Coreican Pine 

 (Pinus Laricio), Portugal Laurel, common and Irish Yew, Box, 

 Furze, common and double ; Ehododendron, Berberis Aquifo- 

 lium, Pinus excelss, P. Cembra, Cupressus Lawsoniana, which 

 makes a dense spreading tree in exposed situations, Azaleas, 

 Lilacs, Snowberry, Bibes sanguineum (the Black Currant 

 spreads here abundantly, and is never touched), Gooseberry, 

 Blackthorn, Sweet Briar, common Barberry, Wellingtonia 

 gigantea, Cedrus atlantiea, Pinus Strobus, common and scarlet- 

 berried Elder, Birch, and Euonymus europaaus. 



The Bramble and Briar have been highly extolled for their 

 covert-making. We bad specimens of these, with Blackthorn. 

 The game avoid rather than choose them ; rabbits take to the 

 Furze ; pheasants rise from the Portugal Laurel and Cupressus; 

 hares take to the former, and partridges select the foot of a 

 Pinus excelsa for nesting ia preference to the vaunted Bramble, 

 Briar, and coarse grass covert. Not a hare, rabbit, nor bird 

 frequents them one tithe so much as they do the evergreen 

 coverts ; they may take to Brambles and Briars, where there is 

 none else, but give them a chance of an evergreen one with its 

 warmth and dryness, and the greater opportunity of keeping, 

 out of sight, and it will soon be apparent which is best. In 

 winter Brambles and Briars afford no shelter to game, as is 

 evidenced by the few birds found in them. Besides their in- 

 utility as covert. Brambles and Hazels are only a means of 

 causing to be disturbed that quiet which game needs for its 

 continuance at a given place. Game cares nothing about the 

 nut of the Hazel, and the fruit of the Barberry does not re- 

 main half so long as Brambles on bushes where pheasants 

 are. For its formidable character the Canadian Goose- 

 berry is superior to the Briar, and pheasants are very fond of 

 the berries; and the Ss-eet Briar does so well, and lends so 

 sweet a charm to rural walks, that its presence deserves to be 

 more apparent than it is. Game can, no doubt, be had by 

 planting, or rather retaining, a primeval vegetation, but ther& 

 is no reason why coverts should not possess interest and 

 beauty for the eye of the sportsman, as well as gams for his 

 skill. — G. Aeeet. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETINGS. 



At the second Marcb meeting of this Society, held on the 20th of 

 that month, the Rev. Leonard Jenyns (with reference to the observa- 

 tions recorded in the Society's proceedings of last autumn relative to 

 the appearance of largo swarms of minute flies — Chlorops lineata- — 

 in the Provost's Lodge, King's College, Cambridge) stated that he had 

 published an account of a precisely similar swarm in the same rooms 

 thirty-nine years ago (Loudon's Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. v., p. 302), and 

 that he accepted the opinion that it was with a view to hybernation. 

 that they had entered the house. 



Mr. Albert MiiUer macle some observations on specimens of the 

 Meadow-brown Butterfly, Csenonympha Satyrion, taken in different 

 parts of Switzerland, which he found to exhibit a general tendency to 

 variation, without such variation being restricted to the opposite sides 

 of the mountain ranges, as had been assumed by Mr. Bntler at the 

 last meeting of the Society. Mr. MiiUer also exhibited an nndescribed 

 species of gall found by Lord Walsingham on a Cares near Thetford,- 

 Norfolk, which was of an oblong form and the size of a grain of \yheat, 

 but from which he had not succeeded in obtaining the perfect insect. 

 Mr. Verrall exhibited a specimen of a Syrphideous fly (Pipizanoctiluctt), 

 having some extraneous matter attached to the head, which was re- 

 garded either as a fungoid growth or as the poUinia of an Orchis. 



Mr. C. 0. Waterhouse communicated a paper on a new genus and 

 species of Stag Beetles (Apterocylus honolnlensis) from the Sandwich 

 Islands, allied to the genus Colophon, Wcftw. 



Mr. Vernon WoUaston communicated a memoir " On Additions to 

 the Atlantic Coleoptera," consisting of descriplions of thirty-three 

 additional species, of which sixteen were new, thus bringing up the 

 total number of Beetles found in these oceanic islands to 1-lSO. In 

 the introduction to this memoir the author entered mlo an examina- 

 of tion the question of the origin of the Beetle fauna of these islands 

 with reference to the recently-published views of Mr. AYallace and Mr. 

 Andrew Mai-ray, and which he.maintained had resulted from a former 



