128 



CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



firmness and assurance, as dogs who had been carefully bred under 

 the influence of the whip and the collar. — M. De La Malle. 



Effects of light on the colour of flowers. — In the month 

 of June I had in a flower-pot a bunch of sweet-williams, of a dark 

 crimson, forming part of a nosegay. They stood in a flower-pot 

 on the mantlepiece. Some of the buds opened in this situation, and 

 displayed a white flower, slightly spotted with pale pink. There 

 was a window next the mantlepiece, and though there was consi- 

 derable light, it appears there was not sufficient to perfect the colour. 

 I can assign no other reason for this phenomenon, which seems to 

 prove the effect of the light on the colour of flowers, unless* we can 

 suppose that the plant, when in the ground, imbibes from the earth 

 certain mineral or metallic particles in peculiar chemical combina- 

 tion, which may, by circulating through the fine tissues of the 

 corolla, serve to give colour by reflection of certain rays of light to 

 the eye of the observer, according to the theory of colours. — E. G. 

 Ballard, Islington, Feb. 2, 1833. 



Grubs eaten in guiana. — The grubs of certain beetles are very 

 destructive to coco trees. They excavate a hole of about an inch 

 diameter in the terminal leaf- bud, and, when the leaves expand, 

 the leaflets appear full of holes, as if they had been perforated with 

 shot of different sizes. In consequence of the injury done to the 

 bud by these insects the trees are sometimes killed. The larva, or 

 grub of one of the species of beetles, which infest coco-nut trees, is 

 called ducuma, or grugan, in British Guiana. It is about two or 

 three inches long, and three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and the 

 head is black. They are reckoned a great delicacy by wood-cutters 

 and epicures of that country, and they are* generally dressed by 

 frying them in a pan. By some they are preferred in a raw state; 

 and after seizing them by the black head, they are dipped in lime 

 juice, and forthwith swallowed. — H. Marshall, Dep. Inspector of 

 Army Hospitals. 



Squirrels. — In the north of Hampshire a great portion of the 

 squirrels have white tails. None of this variety, as far as I can 

 learn, reach the London market. I was much surprised at hearing 

 from a man who kept a bird and cage shop in London, that not less 

 than 20,000 squirrels are annually sold there for the menus plaisirs 

 of cockneys, part of which come from France, but the greater num- 

 ber are brought in by labourers to Newgate and Leadenhall markets, 



