| able to conceive. 
784 CHEESE-MITE. 
low; its thighs, at the base and the apex, are 
ochreous yellow; its tibize are deeply ochreous ; 
its anterior tarsi are black, and the others ochre- 
ous; and its wings are clear, iridescent, and | 
slightly tinged at the base with rust-colour. The 
female, by means of her ovipositor, places her eggs 
deep in the holes and fissures of cheese. The 
larva. cheese-maggot, hopper, or jumper, is pale, 
somewhat transparent, and free from hairs; and 
it has, in front, two strong mandibles resembling 
claws, and, in rear, some projecting points which 
enable it to vindicate its popular name of jumper. 
“These maggots,” says Kirby and Spence’s Intro- 
duction to Entomology, “have long been cele- 
brated for their saltatorial powers. 
their tremendous leaps—laugh not at the term, 
for they are truly so when compared with what 
human force and agility can accomplish —in 
nearly the same manner as salmon are stated to 
do, when they wish to pass over a cataract, by 
taking their tail in their mouth, and letting it 
go suddenly. When it prepares to leap, our lar- 
va first erects itself upon its anus, and then, 
bending itself into a circle by bringing its head 
to its tail, it pushes forth its unguiform mandi- 
|| bles, and fixes them in two cavities in its anal 
tubercles. All being thus prepared, it next con- 
tracts its body into an oblong, so that the two 
halves are parallel to each other. This done, it 
Jets go its hold with so violent a jerk, that the 
sound produced by its mandibles can be readily 
heard, and the leap takes place. Swammerdam 
saw one, whose length did not exceed the fourth 
| part of an inch, jump in this manner out of a box 
six inches deep; which is as if a man, six feet 
high, should raise himself in the air by jumping 
144 feet.” When cheese-maggots are numerous 
| In a cheese, they rapidly destroy it, both by 
crumbling it into minute particles, and by shed- 
| ding upon it a corrosive and putrefying liquid ; 
but they may easily be destroyed, either by ex- 
posing it to a pretty strong heat, or by plunging 
it in such a medicated bath as will kill them 
without altering its own substance or flavour. 
CHEESE-MITE. A very minute apterous in- 
sect, of the acarus genus. It is so small as to be 
very nearly microscopic ; it accumulates, in great 
multitudes, upon dry decayed cheeses ; and, by 
an extraordinary perversity of taste, it consti- 
tutes, in the estimation of many gourmands, a 
grand recommendation of the putrid caseous 
masses which it overruns and inhabits. How it 
They effect 
gets into cheeses, is not known. A colony of it, 
as seen through a powerful microscope, are in- 
teresting objects of both curious and scientific 
observation ; but how they can be pleasant sub- 
jects of human mastication, or desirable tenants 
of the human stomach, none but gourmands are 
the fine brown powder which the eaters of de- 
cayed cheese so particularly relish. A cheese- 
mite has eight legs; and between two claws, on 
An eminently disgusting cir-_ 
| cumstance is, that their excrements constitute 
CHEESE-PRESS. 
the foremost four of these, is a long-necked vesi- 
cle which possesses great capacity of inflation 
and contraction. When the mite sets down its 
foot, the vesicle inflates; and when the creature 
lifts up its foot, the vesicle contracts. 
CHEESE-PRESS. A machine for effecting 
the compression of cheeses, and forcing from 
them the remains of their whey while in the 
cheese-vat. A great evil, in the simplest and 
most primitive cheese-presses, is the imposing of 
sudden, forcible, and maximum pressure, and the 
consequent forcing out of portions of fatty juice, 
the retention of which adds both richness of fla- 
vour and highness of price; and a considerable 
evil, in even some of the newer and more im- 
proved machines, is the unequal distribution of 
the pressure, and the consequent want of uni- 
formity in the texture of the cheese. The vari- 
eties of cheese-presses are very numerous; and 
some of these varieties are in extensive use; but 
all, the ancient as well as the modern, may be 
satisfactorily referred to five types. 
The simplest and oldest kind of cheese-press is 
a long timber lever, so adjusted as either to im- 
pose the weight direct upon the cheese-vat, or to 
let the latter be placed between the weight and 
the fulcrum. The end of the lever—in modes of 
adjustment which may still be seen exemplified 
upon cottier-farms, or the farms of remote dis- 
tricts—is fixed sometimes in a hole in the wall, 
sometimes to a bolt, and sometimes in the trunk 
of a tree; and the sinker forms the fulcrum, 
while two or three undressed stones, placed on 
the other end of the lever, constitute the weight. 
A second kind of cheese-press has a large 
square stone suspended by a screw, between the 
side-posts of a timber-frame. The cheese-vat is 
placed directly beneath the stone; and the latter 
is lowered upon the sinker, or returned to its 
former position, by respectively the turning and 
the re-turning of the screw. During the inter- 
vals of the machine being used, a small block of 
timber is placed beneath the stone, to sustain its 
weight, and to prevent the screw from being 
‘strained. This kind of cheese-press may, by good 
management, be so constructed as to effect both 
equal and graduated pressure; but, in general, it 
imposes the whole weight at once, and is consi- 
derably liable to make an over-pressure on one’ 
side. 
A third kind of cheese-press consists of two 
perpendicular side-posts, a fixed cross-beam on 
the top, a moveable cross-beam parallel to that 
on the top, and two screws suspending the latter | 
beam upon the former, and working it up or down 
as required. The cheese-vat is placed upon the 
lower beam, and screwed up into compression 
against the upper beam. This mechanism may 
seem to secure graduation and equal diffusion of 
pressure ; but it can rarely, if ever, be depended 
on for perfect working throughout any consider- 
able period, and must be regarded as very little 
superior to the second kind. 
Oo 
