304 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
JULY 31. 
seldom, and in few places, is no counter-evidence. It 
is often passed by, probably, without examination, being 
mistaken for Asplenium trichomanes, and other common 
species. 
The first to announce this as a British Fern was Mr. 
Hudson, in the first edition of his Flora Anglica, pub¬ 
lished during the year 1762. He states that it grew 
upon “ rocky places near Wybourn, in Westmoreland.” 
Mr. Bolton, in his Filices Britannicee, or History of 
British Proper Ferns, published in 1780, states that 
this Fern was found on the walls of Agmondesham 
(Amersham) Church, in Buckinghamshire. In 1838, 
Mr. Readhead found it on rocks in Wharncliffe Woods, 
Yorkshire. Mr. Charles Johnson discovered it, in 1845, 
on an old wall on Tooting Common, Surrey. More 
recently it has been found by the Rev. W. Hawker, on 
a wall at Ashford, near Petersfield, in Hampshire. Mr. 
Shepherd, of Liverpool, sent specimens to Mr. Moore, 
which had been collected at Matlock, in Derbyshire. 
Mr. Hutcheson, formerly gardener at Boxley Abbey, 
Kent, and a Fern cultivator, gathered it in 1842, on 
rocks near Stonehaven, in Kincardineshire. Thus, it 
has been found by competent judges in various parts 
of England, in Ireland, and in Scotland, and it would 
be worse than irrational to maintain that in all these 
places it had been accidentally introduced by spores 
brought from continental Europe. 
The rarity of this Fern is in a considerable degree 
accounted for by the fact of its being unable to sustain 
our climate, except in sheltered, and thoroughly suitable 
situations. 
To gi'ow it in perfection, and to preserve it ever¬ 
green, it must be cultivated as a pot plant, and have 
glass protection the whole year, with shading from the 
scorching sun’s rays during the summer months. It 
may stand in a pan to receive water, when required, 
but, in general, it should be sparingly watered, compared 
with the generality of Ferns, and yet never allowed to 
go dry. 
Like most of the family, it is readily increased by 
careful division of large or old plants, in open weather 
during the spring months, and being planted in a 
mixture of sandy peat and broken bricks, or old mortar, 
or both. A little of this mixed with the soil is found 
beneficial to the plants, and particular attention is re¬ 
required to have good drainage. This drainage is best 
formed of fresh broken bricks. The roots of all Ferns 
seem to delight in finding their roots among this ma¬ 
terial. The pots should, in all cases, for this particular 
kind, be better than oue-third filled with drainage, then 
a little moss over the drainage to prevent the earth 
going down among the broken bricks. When the 
drainage is thus all right, the plants may be watered 
more freely and safely. When shifting these plants into 
larger pots the drainage should be as before directed, 
and the crowns of the plants should be kept consider- 
ably higher than the rim of the pots. This is an 
essential point. 
One ol the greatest points in the culture aud keeping 
these scarce and choice Ferns, is carefully to give them 
water, and to shade them when needed, and not to 
disturb them so long as they are doing well. The out¬ 
side of the pots the specimens stand in should be 
occasionally washed nicely, as well as the pans which 
the pots stand in. 
Ferns, like other plants, occasionally become infested 
with Aphides, to destroy which they should be fumigated 
with tobacco-smoke. 
When specimens are seeming to tire of their soil, or 
are become too large, then is the best time for division, 
or to make a number of plants out of one scarce one, 
for not till then would we divide a fine specimen of 
such plants. 
The July Meeting of the Entomological Society was 
held on the 2nd inst., the President occupying the chair. 
In addition to the donations of their Proceedings, by 
the Royal Society, aud the Society of Arts, and various 
Entomological publications, a valuable donation was 
received from R. H. Meade, Esq., F.R.C. of Surgeons, 
being a collection of ninety-four British species of 
Spiders (in addition to sixty species previously pre¬ 
sented), together with thirteen species of Harvest 
Spiders, of which group an excellent monograph has 
just been published by Mr. Meade. These specimens 
were preserved in a saline solution of sulphate of 
magnesia, with a slight addition of diluted sulphuric 
acid, being a preferable method of preserving these 
objects than that usually adopted of immersing them 
in spirits of wine. 
Mr. Foxcrolt sent for exhibition a number of rare 
species of various orders, which he had collected in 
Perthshire, for distribution among the subscribers to his 
excursion, accompanied by notes of a species which, in 
the larva state, resides in Ants nests, and which, from 
Mr. Foxcroft’s observations, appears to be the cased 
Caterpillar of a small species of Tinea. 
Mr. Westwood exhibited a number of specimens of 
the minute larva) of Meloeproscarabceus, which he had 
received from one of the correspondents of The Cot¬ 
tage Gardener, and which were described as having 
been found congregated in masses of the size of a pea, 
at the tips of leaves of Potatoes; in their later stale 
they are parasitic in the nests of wild bees. 
Mr. Samuel Stevens exhibited a new and very re¬ 
markable longicorn Beetle, recently brought from the 
Feejee Islands, by Mr. MacGillivray, and to which 
Mr. A. White had given the name of Psalulicoptus 
scaber. 
Mr. F. Smith exhibited specimens of the very rare 
British species of Ant, Tapenoma erratica, of which 
several colonies had been discovered by Mr. F. Grant, 
near Loudon. 
Mr. Arthur Adams exhibited the equally rare Beetle, 
Drypta emarginata, taken recently near Portsmouth. 
Mr. Stainton exhibited a remarkable collection of 
drawings of the transformations of minute Lepidoptera, 
made by a Prussian amateur, and which had been 
placed in his hands during his recent visit to Berlin. 
