July 25, 1872. ] 



JOUENAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



SI 



underneath the stages in Mr. Ayres's hothouse, but these, we 

 think, were not large enough. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETING. 

 The last meeting of this Society for the season was held on 

 the 1st inst. at Burlington House ; the President, Professor 

 Westwood, being in the chair. Amongst the donations to the 

 library received since the last meeting was the new part of the 

 Illustrated Catalogue of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 Harvard College, U.S., containing a remarkable memoir on the 

 transformations of the Libellulidse ; also Mr. Scudder's new 

 memoir on the distribution of the North American Butterflies, 

 in which a complete derangement of the genera and then' names 

 has been made, almost every species raised to the rank of a 

 genus, and the characters of several of the genera given, extend- 

 ing to five pages each. The Transactions of the Natural History 

 Society of Moscow, and of the Entomological Society of Canada 

 were also presented. 



Mr. Jenner "Weir exhibited specimens of Agrotera nemoralis, 

 taken at Abbot's "Wood, near Hailsham, on the 25th June ; and 

 Mr. Meldola some remakably minute specimens of the Orange-tip 

 Butterfly, the Magpie and other Moths ; also a spotless variety 

 ef Venilia maculata, and a specimen of the very rare Leucania 

 Titellina, taken at Brighton. 



The Chairman exhibited several remarkable Coleoptera re- 

 ceived from Ceylon, collected by G. H. K. Thwaites, Esq., the 

 Director of the Botanic Garden at Paradenia; also the oval 

 cocoons of a species of Ichneumonidfe from Ceylon, affixed at 

 the end of a very long thread, and of a pale colour with black 

 bands and spots ; also illustrations of the habits of a species of 

 moth-larva which cuts out oval pieces, an inch long, from the 

 leaves of a species of Citrus, and forms therewith the moveable 

 cover of a tent, beneath which it lives, feeds, and undergoes its 

 transformations. Unfortunately the specimens had been de- 

 stroyed by minute Ichneumons' of the genus Microgaster, of 

 which a number had been reared. 



Mr. Albert Miiller exhibited portions of the leaves of the com- 

 mon Fern or Bracken mined or curled-up by three different 

 kinds of Dipterous larva?, including Cecidomyia Pteridis, from 

 "Weybridge. Mr. Lewis read a circular letter which had received 

 the signature of Messrs. Wallace, Bates, Hewitson, Pascoe, 

 Wollaston, &c, urging entomologists to ignore the adoption of 

 names which had been long forgotten, but which it was now 

 proposed by some writers should be reinstated, and the names 

 in use superseded, until such time as the method of dealing with 

 them shall be settled by common agreement. A long and some- 

 what angry discussion took place on the subject. 



Mr. Dunning read a note published by Dr. Leconte, in the 

 periodical "Nature," contending thac the genus Platypsylla, 

 upon which Professor Westwood had proposed to found a new 

 order named Achreioptera, in reality belonged to the order 

 Coleoptera, an opinion to which Professor Westwood objected. 

 The insect is parasitic on the beaver. He also read an article 

 by Mr. Moseley concerning the real origin of the squeaking 

 sound produced by Sphinx Atropos, the Death's-head Moth, 

 respecting which not less than eleven different theories had been 

 proposed. That of Signor Passerini had, however, been satis- 

 factorily proved by Mr. Moseley's dissections to be the correct 

 one — namely, that it originated in a small cavity within the 

 point of the head at the base of the short spiral tongue, which 

 is dilated and pressed by strong muscles, the' air escaping 

 through the narrow mouth acting as in a whistle. 



TODEA WILKESIANA. 



We are told by Mr. J. Smith that this plant was discovered 

 in the Fiji Islands by the United States Exploring Expedition 

 under the command of Commodore "Wilkes, in honour of whom 

 it was named by Mr. Brackenridge, and it is alluded to by 

 various members of that expedition as the " Little Tree Fern," 

 and was stated to grow some 4 feet high. Subsequently the 

 Fijis were visited by the late Dr. Berthold Seemann, and he 

 found it " growing as an underwood in the mountains of Somo- 

 somo, where it attains the height of 7 feet ;" and he records 

 the fact of its being frequently found bearing several crowns, 

 which is the more remarkable on account of its very slender 

 stem, which, it would seem, is never stouter than an ordinary 

 walking cane. 



This species is a valuable addition to our cultivated Ferns, 

 and for its introduction Fern-growers are indebted to that 

 indefatigable traveller and collector the late Mr. John Gould 

 Veitch. It is an elegant miniature tree Fern, and the effect 

 of its long, spreading, pellucid fronds waving in the wind 

 upon the top of so slender a stem must be perfectly en- 

 chanting. It belongs to that section of its tribe called by 

 amateurs Filmy Ferns, on account of the extreme delicacy of 



the texture of the pinnules in this plant ; these are, however, 

 much stouter than the majority of this section, and conse- 

 quently better able to withstand a somewhat drier atmosphere, 

 and we have had ample proof that it will succeed admirably in 

 a cool temperature, which will greatly enhance its value, inas- 

 much as it thus comes within the reach of those who have 

 only a fair-sized Wardian case to accommodate their pets. 

 The leaves or fronds are bipinnate, broadly lanceolate in shape, 

 and in large specimens about 2 feet in length ; the pinnfe are 

 oblong-lanceolate and sessile, whilst the pinnules are obtuse, 

 dentate on the edges, and deep sea green. 



This plant, like the other species of Todea, should be grown 

 in a moist atmosphere, and prefers deep shade ; to create the 

 necessary moisture the fronds should be lightly sprinkled with, 

 water from a fine syringe two or three times a-day during the 

 summer months, but, of course, this operation will necessarily 

 be less frequent during winter, when the external air is more 

 charged with moisture and the evaporation less rapid. The 

 soil should be good fibrous peat, with some sharp sand mixed 

 with it, and just a small addition of light loam to make the 

 whole a little more solid. The pots in which the plants are 

 grown must be well drained, on account of its delighting in a, 

 plentiful supply of water, which must not be allowed to remain 

 stagnant in the soil, but care must be taken that it never 

 becomes dry. If the amateur only follows the above few 

 simple rules this exquisite little gem may be grown success- 

 fully in a Wardian case, even in the very heart of London. 

 — Expebto Crude. 



WOOD PULP FOR PAPER-MAKING. 



A steady and considerable advance in the price of rags, from 

 which unsavoury and unwholesome materials our cream-laid 

 note and other glossy papers are usually manufactured, has 

 coincided with a fall in the price of paper. The apparent 

 anomaly is easily explained. It arises that from time to time 

 very different materials have been pressed into the service of 

 the paper-maker. Straw is well known as the material from 

 which a tolerably good paper is manufactured. Esparto grass 

 (Macrochloa tenacissima) has been utilised to a large extent in 

 some of our paper mills ; in fact, so much so that the streams 

 have been dyed and the fish poisoned wholesale by the foul re- 

 fuse which is left in the process of manufacture. The bark andl 

 even the woody fibre of the Paper Mulberry tree (Broussonetia 

 papyrifera) are used exclusively in Japan, the cunning industry 

 of which almost unknown country produces no less than ninety 

 distinct kinds of paper. This I can vouch for, having seen the 

 Japanese at work during my five years' residence at Yokohama. 

 In 1865, 70,000 tons of vegetable fibrous substance were im- 

 ported by the paper-makers of the United Kingdom ; and now, 

 on the Continent, we find that wood is used in large quantities 

 for the same purpose. 



Heinrich Voelter, of Heidenheim-on-the-Brenz, in the king- 

 dom of Wurtemberg, is the inventor of a successful method of 

 manufacturing a tolerably clean white paper pulp from wood 

 at a low price. It does not require bleaching. He has, I be- 

 lieve, obtained patents for his process in almost all European 

 countries and America. It is adopted by all the large paper- 

 manufacturers of France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, 

 Norway, Austria, and Canada. A single paper mill in Ger- 

 many consumes yearly 500 tons of wood pulp, and scarcely a 

 newspaper is printed in Germany which does not contain some 

 proportion of this material. 



The cost of paper pulp produced from wood is stated to be 

 nowhere more than half the cost of rag pulp, and considerably 

 less where there is a good supply of wood, and water power to 

 drive the machinery. If of inferior quality as regards what is 

 called the luxury of paper, the article thus produced from 

 wood is tough, but serviceable and well adapted for printing. 

 By mixing wood with rag pulp in various proportions, papers 

 of different sorts may be produced at moderate prices. For 

 printing papers, either white or coloured, from 30 to 70 per 

 cent, of wood pulp is mixed with that produced from rag fibre ; 

 35 per cent, of Pine wood pulp gives a common tinted drawing 

 paper ; from 30 to 50 per cent, of wood pulp serves for writing 

 papers of various colours, the latter proportion of Pine wood 

 pulp being used for an ordinary blue letter paper, which takes 

 the ink easily and is pleasant to the touch of the pen. Coloured 

 papers for book wrappers, tissue papers, paper hangings, card- 

 boards, are all produced by similar instances in various pro- 

 portions. No single article of manufacture can be taken as a 

 more distinct test of the state of civilisation than paper. Be- 



