310 Miscellaneous. 
of a wine police; as in the Rhine districts. There ought to be a 
selection at the precise moment for wine making on chemical 
principles ; that few Dalmatian wines keep well, or stand a sea 
voyage is owing to a slight amount of acidity in the first stage of 
wine-making. From an improper exposure to the air there is 
occasionally the flat disagreeable flavour, known by the sardonic 
expression of ‘mouse closet bouquet.” There is also a want of 
proper cellarage in Dalmatia, the soil being subject to earthquakes ; 
subterranean vaults are acted on by the internal heat, and do 
little to produce coolness, except at the bottom of steep hills 
facing the north, so as to be at least protected from the external 
heat of the sun. Venice used formerly to be the chief market for 
Dalmatian wines, but the railway by Conegliano Pordenore, the 
Tagliamento, and the Friuli having opened the market of Venice 
to wines superior to the majority of those of Dalmatia, the latter 
have lost much of the Venice market. The Dalmatian vintage of 
1865 was copious and excellent, but the wine of Venetia appears 
to have been equally abundant, for, during the winter, several 
cargoes were returned from Venice to Spulato by the consignees, 
in consequence of purchasers not having been found at the lo west 
prices fixed on. 
NOTES ON ORANGE-TREE PLAGUES rN. THE AZORES.—The 
Coccus Hesperidum, of which mention has been made 
as one of the afflicttons from which the orange trees have 
suffered seriously, is an insect well known to English exotic 
gardeners as attacking the orange trees in greenhouses, &c. It 
is one of the forty-three species of the genus coccus (order hemif- 
tera), and is commonly known as the greenhouse bug. It is oval, 
oblong, brownish in colour, and covered with a sort of exuding 
varnish. ‘The male coccus of this species is a minute fly. The 
female having no wings when young, runs over the trees, and, 
finally, settles upon some leaf, where she deposits and hatches an 
infinity of eggs and then perishes. The more distinguished species 
of this genus is that which feeds chiefly upon the cactus opuntia, 
which is therefore denominated the coccus cacti, and the origin of 
which has been traced to South America. This species is the 
valuable (though no less destructive) cochineal insect of commerce. 
Frequent manipulation and treatment with any pungent insoluble 
powders (not injurious to vegetation), such as peppers, raw sul- 
phur, &-c., are amongst the best of corrective appliances as against 
the orange-tree coccus. The lagrimais one of those maladies 
which commonly result in all organic bodies as the effect of ex- 
haustion, and is probably due in these islands to the unchecked 
depredations of the coccus. It is a degenerated form of orange 
dew, otherwise known as orange manna. 
BOOKS RECEIVED. 
Hardwicke’s Science Gossip, for December. 
The Artizan for December. 
