FEBRUARY. 
33 
horticulture should endeavour to do their best to make the scheme a great 
national and horticultural success, and to show the superiority of English 
horticulture over that of any continental nation. 
ON WASPS, FLIES, AND EARWIGS. 
Every one knows that wasps have been scarce and flies plentiful during the 
last hot and dry season; and as heat favours the increase of both pests, it may 
be worth while to inquire why wasps have been scarce. It was not owing to 
the scarcity of queens to found colonies, for plenty of them were bred in the 
previous season, but rather to the fact of their having been cut off during the 
severe weather in March; and thus the old saying has failed, “ A Plum year 
is a w'asp year.” Although, however, the fruit escaped the attacks of wasps, it 
has been much damaged by flies and earwigs. Wasps act the swallow’s part 
among insects, and thus their scarcity may account in some degree for the 
abundance of both flies and earwigs. It is somewhat surprising to see how 
glibly a wasp can catch a fly—not by a crafty net like a spider, but by snapping 
it up with its mandibles. It will then carry off its prey with a clean swoop. 
In fact, wasps are hawking insects, and perhaps devour more flies and their 
eggs than large dragon flies, w T hich are few in number, and only fly about late 
in the autumn. 
Respecting earwigs, I am but little acquainted with their history, but the 
young are found mixed up with the old, are of a whitish colour, and increase 
in size with age, which shows that they are bred from eggs. I may note that 
all insects are of their full size when they come from the chrysalis; the slight 
difference in size between some of the same species is owing to that of the 
grubs before they passed into the pupa state. This reminds me that lately a 
friend sent me a large green grub of the death’s-head moth, which fed on Ash 
leaves, and soon became a chrysalis. I kept it among soil in a flower-pot, covered 
with gauze, in a hothouse ; yet though buried in the soil, it always managed 
to get to the surface. In about five weeks it was hatched, and is now before 
me, a fine specimen of that most singular-looking moth, and when teazed it 
rises up and squeaks like a bat. 
To return to earwigs: They have wings, but I never observed one fly, nor 
make the least attempt to use its wings when falling down. They hide, many 
together, during the day; but are also found in pairs or alone. It is at night 
that they do most damage, both to fruit and flowers. Various plans have been 
tried to destroy them, and perhaps the old one of placing hollow bean stems 
amongst w r all trees, and in the morning shaking the pests out into a pot of 
water, is the best. I need hardly notice that of placing a small flower-pot on 
the top of a Dahlia stake, for that is well known. 
Cossey Park. J. Wight on. 
NEW BOOK. 
Les Plantes a Feuilles Ornementales en pleine Terre—Botanique et Culture. 
Par Comte Leonce de Lambertye. Paris: Auguste Goin, Rue des 
Ecoles, 82. Part I. Solanum. 
This, as its title implies, is the first part of a work on those plants with 
ornamental foliage which are so extensively and successfully employed in the 
public, gardens of Paris. For the most part natives of tropical or semi-tropical 
climates, they present a rich luxuriance of growth but rarely found in the 
vegetation of more northern- lands, and this, combined with the novelty of 
