NATURAL HISTORY QUERIES 
249 
himself from his own jKiintings and superintended the colouring of the earlier 
copies, “this work was the most splendid of its kind that England had ever 
produced” (Pulteney). A second edition, revised by George Edwards, was 
published in 1754, and a third, with an index of Linntean names, in I 77 t- The 
author was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1733 ; and a critical account 
of each part of his work by the Secretary, Ur. Cromwell Mortimer, was published, 
as it appeared, in the Philosophical Transactions. Catesby published one paoer 
in the Philosophical Transactions “on Birds of Passage,” in which he opposes 
the view, which, it will be remembered, Gilbert White favoured, that birds lie 
torpid in caverns or at the bottom of the water. Before his death he removed 
to Fulham, and afterwards to Old Street, where he died in a house behind St. 
Luke’s Church, December 23 1749, leaving a widow and two children. His 
“ Ilortus Europxv Americanus, or a collection of 85 curious Trees and Shrubs,” 
a folio with 17 plates, was not published until 1763, when it was produced by the 
Christopher Gray, nurseryman, of Fulham, who is mentioned in the following 
account which Catesby himself gives of the Catalpa. 
“ Bignonia [/rncu foliis Jlo>e sordi,ii albo, intus macnlis purpureis et lutets 
asperso, siliqnd longissimd et ungustissimd. The Catalpa Tree. This is usually 
a small Tree, seldom rising above 20 feet in height. The bark smooth: the 
wood soft and spongy ; the leaves shaped like those of the Lilac, but much larger, 
some being ten inches over. In May it produces spreading bunches of tubulous 
flowers, like the common Fox-glove, white, only variegated with a few reddish 
purple spots and yellow streaks on the inside : the calix is of a copper colour. 
These flowers are succeeded by round porls, about the thickness of one’s finger, 
fourteen inches in length ; which, when ripe, open and display its seeds, which 
are winged, and lie over each other like the scales of fish. This Tree was 
unknown to the inhabited parts of Carolina till I brought the seeds from the 
remoter parts of the country. And though the inhabitants are little curious in 
gardening, yet the uncommon beauty of the Tree has induced them to propagate 
it ; and ’lis become an ornament to many of their gardens, and probably will be 
the same to ours in England, it being as hardy as most of our American plants, 
many of them now at Mr. Christopher Grays, at Fulham, having stood out 
several winters, and produced plentifully their beautiful flowers, without any 
protection, except the first yeai.” 
The tree was named Bignonia Catalpa by Linnaeus ; but in 1788, in Thomas 
Walter’s “ Flora Caroliniana,” it appears as Catalpa bignonioides, which name has, 
therefore, priority over the Catalpa syringafolia of Sims. It is tolerably certain 
from the above quotation that the species was unknown in Britain until 1726, 
exactly a century after the death of Francis Bacon. G. S. Boulger. 
NATURAL HISTORY QUERIES. 
39 . Enemies of Bees. — A neighbour assures me that on one occasion he 
noticed four or five swallows and the same numl>er of house-martins engaged in 
catching his bees. This is foreign to my experience. Another friend tells me 
that one summer his bees were decimated by nightingales. This also is news to 
me. Tits sometimes attack bees which venture out in a cold early spring ; and 
robins too, I have been told. Can any one corroborate any of these statements ? 
Edmu.n’d Thos. Daubeny. 
40. Luminous Centipede. — A few nights ago after switching out the 
electric light in the drawing room I saw a patch of phosphorous light on the 
carpet. By putting my finger upon it I was able to spread and divide the light. 
A match was struck and I saw a sma'l brown centipede crawling away. I gently 
crushed it hoping to see light emitted, but in vain. Can anyone throw light on 
this luminous subject ? 
Ethel G. Woodd. 
[The luminosity of these myriapods is well-known, having been observed by 
Mouffet before 1634, and by Ray. It occurs at certain times of the year, in both 
