THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, December 80, 1856. 2]5 
or only females by the Oak-ink Gall) might be the result 
of this latter mode of|development.;I Numerous instances 
were mentioned by members'present of such remarkable 
abnormal development, without any male impregnation 
occurring, in Fumea [: nitidella , Psyche fusca, the genus 
Talceporia, in the common garden Tiger Moth, Arctia 
Caja, by Mr. Robinson, and by Mr. Hudson in Liparis 
dispar. 
Mr. Westwood directed attention to the excellent 
series of memoirs on the Lepidoptera of Cyprus, Syria, 
and Siberia, and also on the generical arrangement of 
the family Geometridse, published by M. Lederer in the 
Vienna Transactions, and also to the valuable descrip¬ 
tions of exotic Coleoptera by M. Perroud, published in 
the Lyons Transactions. 
Mr. Edward Sheppard mentioned to the Meeting that 
he had recently visited M. Lacordaire, of Liege, and 
that the fourth volume of his great work upon the 
genera of Coleoptera was in the press, and would be 
accompanied by the first portion of the illustrations of 
the genera of the same order, executed by M. Jules 
Mignou. 
Mr. Armitage exhibited a number of interesting 
Coleoptera, captured by himself on Mount Olympus and 
on the shores of the Dardanelles. 
Mr. Stainton read some notes on the generic distribu¬ 
tion of insects, in which he adopted the views of 
Mr. Wollaston’s recently-published work, that although 
groups of species ranged themselves round certain types 
or knots, their limits were not positive and decided, but 
that the groups became connected at their outskirts by 
means of a species which partook of the characters of 
both. An extended discussion ensued upon the subject, 
in which Mr. Waterhouse denied the existence of such 
transitional species, which he considered as merely 
theoretical, and which had no actual occurrence in 
nature. 
DOUBLE WHITE PETUNIA. 
I have not heard of any one yet who intends to plant 
another bed of the Double White Petunia; but they 
did not give up the idea of succeeding with it at Shrub- 
land Park when I was there at the beginning of Sep¬ 
tember ; and if any means can be discovered for making 
a good bed of it, the discovery will be made there first. 
It is one of the best of all our soft-wooded plants for a 
pot in the conservatory, the greenhouse, the show-house, 
or the front hall, and as such no one seems to grudge 
the first expense of purchasing it; hut its real qualifi¬ 
cation stands on a much higher level than that of com¬ 
peting as a pot plant. About the end of July I was told 
that it had crossed with many other kinds of Petunias, 
and that from this stock we might reasonably expect to 
see more of the double kinds from which to choose 
bedders. One learns by degrees not to call “ chick” till 
the egg is hatched in such matters, and, from my not 
having said who effected these crosses, many people 
thought I possessed them myself, and some have con¬ 
gratulated me on the fact, which was rather premature. 
I never crossed a Petunia but one season, when I ob¬ 
tained the Shrubland Rose. It was out of the Chronicles 
of the Experimental Garden that I was able to announce 
the fact accomplished. 
When I had occasion, the other day, to write down to 
Somerset about the Collinsia bicolor alba, I asked Mr. 
Scott, of the Merriot Nurseries, about the progress of this 
experiment, he being the informant in the first instance, 
and he answers by saying, “ I am glad to tell you that I 
have about a thousand of them, all between Imperialis 
and various single sorts. Many of them will be early in 
bloom, so that by May-day I shall hope to have given 
pledges to posterity.” But I am not reconciled to this 
admission yet; and now I can see the full force of what 
Mrs. Jane Forrest says about how “ very difficult it is 
for those who thoroughly understand a subject to write 
for ignorant persons;” and I might add, “ how easy it 
seems for a clever man to escape Scott free from the 
questions of persons not quite so ignorant as all that; ” 
for if I were to be crossed this moment I could not tell the 
kind of Petunia from which a thousand seedlings have 
been obtained. They were raised “ between Imperialis 
and various single sorts;” hut if they were between a 
witch and a warlock I should guess easier how to set 
about repeating the experiment. “I am also strong in 
seedling Fuchsias," he goes on to say, “ having nearly, 
or, I may say, above a thousand of them also, some of 
which are now, early in December, from two to three 
inches high ; the produce of such kinds as Mrs. Storey, 
the best white corolla out, Galanthxflora and other whites, 
Raphael, Prince Albert, Venus de Medici, a duck, and 
last, though greatest and best of all in my opinion, 
Wonderful. Have you seen this? (No.) If not, you 
certainly must.” 
LINUM GRANDIFLORUM. 
All those who have acted on the advice of Mr. King- 
horn, and lifted their plants from the borders before the 
frost, will find them now to he as easy to keep as any of 
the old Calceolarias— Rugosa for instance. As soon as 
I was told of Mr. Kinghorn’s plan I had my own plants, 
only two, taken up and potted. I did not find many 
roots ; but the lifting did not seem to hurt them in the 
least. The two are in one pot, a 32-sized pot, and they 
look now just as well as the one I had in a pot all along 
on the sill of a window facing the south. This plant 
was not allowed to bloom the whole season. I intended 
from the first to keep it over the winter if possible, and 
to strike cuttings from it in the spring, so as to enable 
me to prove it as a bedder of the first water, or kill it 
in the attempt. I said that heat was not good for it, 
and I am of that opinion yet; but others have got it 
up well enough in a hotbed even as early as February, 
therefore I must give in on that point; and now I am 
also aware, or very nearly so, that I must eat my own 
words for saying that it was not fit for a bed. I am 
almost sure it will make one of the most beautiful beds 
that ever was seen ; but it must be had from cuttings to 
do that. Seedlings get too top heavy before they are 
strong enough on their legs to stand much wind or rain; 
but a bed of it from cuttings may require to he held 
up at first, as we do sometimes with weak Petunias and 
Groundsel, and such-like. Another thing which makes 
a bed of it dangerous from seeds is, that it does not come I 
true from seeds. One of our correspondents declared he j 
never saw such a milk-and-water concern, and a bunch 
of seedlings which were sent to the Experimental turned 
out equally bad, all but three plants. My own three seed¬ 
lings, out of twenty or twenty-five seeds from a first-rate 
London house, were splendid flowers, and I had several 
samples from different parts of the country, but none 
that were better than my own, except one which was 
sent by Mr. Scott, the cross-breeder of double Petunias, j 
of whom I inquired the fate of the mother-plants in the 
letter already alluded to. Here is his answer“ The j 
Linum grandiflorum, did not seed well with me, most of j 
the pods being abortive. I ought to have set the flowers 
with their own pollen, but did not know that it was so 
