Temples of India. 71 



the interior of a private house, gentlemen of the olden times engaged 

 in conversation, taking refreshment from small cups and surrounded 

 by attendants ; here a troop of gracile, and flower bearing maidens, 

 and there the contortions of the young athletes ; now the busy traffic 

 of the market-place, then the port full of ships, the hum of its trade, 

 and the creaking of its cordage speaking to the life. There, may be 

 seen likewise representations of the leading types of the human race, 

 the swart ^Ethiopian with thick lip, and curly pate, the fair-haired 

 Son of the North, and the Red Man of the far West. And to think 

 alas ! that all this has remained for years within a few miles of one 

 of the largest military stations in India — unsaid of — and unsung. 

 Calcutta Nov. 15, 1844. 



The Vegetable or Bulrush Caterpillars. By James B. Thompson, 

 M. D., Physician to the British Hospital, Damascus, communicated 

 by Captain McNaghen. 



This very remarkable plant, which is indigenous to New Zealand 

 and New South Wales, may be considered as one of the most curi- 

 ous vegetable productions with which we are at present acquainted, 

 and therefore merits as minute a description of its botanical charact- 

 ers as we are capable of giving from our very recent knowledge of its 

 very peculiar characteristics. The New Zealanders have been long 

 acquainted with it, and have used its top, when burnt, as colouring 

 matter for their tattooing, rubbing the fine powder into the wounds, 

 in which state it has a very strong animal smell. The natives eat 

 these plants, too, when fresh, as they do also the fern-root. In the 

 number of the ■ Medical Times' for November 4th, 1843, is a short re- 

 port of some remarks made at the Meeting of the Westminster Medi- 

 cal Society, on the occasion of my exhibiting the drawings of this ve- 

 getable, and at which time I offered some remarks on the opinions en- 

 tertained by Sir William Hooker and Professor Owen, regarding the 

 change produced in the caterpillar by the seed of a parasitic plant or 

 fungus. 



Plate II. — Sphceria Robertsia and Sp. innominata. 



There are birds which dispossess others of their nests, and marine 

 animals which take up their abode in deserted shells ; but this plant 



