Chapter XII: Part 12

This subject naturally introduces the preservation of the creatures after their death, and the young entomologist is not perhaps sensible from experience of the injury some species of insects will effect in the selected specimens of others of this race, and may lament, when too late, the separation of the wings, limbs, and bodies of his collection by these tiny depredators (ptinus fur, acararus destructor). Mr. Waterton’s recipe for preventing this evil, I have used rather extensively and believe it to be a very effectual, and generally an innocuous preservative; but as this gentleman has not given us the exact proportions of his mixture, it may not be useless to observe, that if one part of corrosive sublimate be dissolved in eight parts of good spirit of wine, and the under side of the insect touched with a camel’s- hair pencil, dipped in the liquor, so as to let it lightly pervade every part of the creature, which it readily does, it will, I apprehend, prevent any future injury from insects. A larger portion of the sublimate will leave an unsightly whiteness upon the creature when the specimen becomes dry. The under side of the board, on which the insects are fixed, should be warmed a little by the fire after the application, that the superfluous moisture may fly off, before finally closing the case. If this be omitted, the inner surface of the glass will sometimes become partially obscured by the fume arising from the mixture. The experienced entomologist needs not a notice like this; but the young collector probably will not regard it as unnecessary information, and may be spared by it from both mortification and regret. I have known insects commence their serious operations before the collections of the summer could be arranged in their permanent cases.

In noticing above, that this solution is generally harmless, it is requisite that mention should be made of the few instances in which it has been observed to be injurious. I have applied it to many specimens of foreign and British insects, and commonly observed no indication of its having been used, when the creatures had become dry. But to confine our attentions to English specimens, when the solution is made stronger than recommended, it will, after a time, injure the fine yellow of the sulphur butterfly (papilio rhamni), by turning parts of it brown and dirty; but even in its reduced state it has a manifest effect upon the colors of two of our moths, the Dartford emerald (phalæna lucidata), and what is commonly called the green housewife moth (phalæna vernaria) changing their plumage, in several places, to a red buffy hue, when at the same time the beautiful green wings of the small oak-moth (phalæna viridana) are in no way altered by it. But notwithstanding these circumstances, it will, I apprehend, be considered as a very useful preservative, and save many specimens from destruction which other means usually fail of effecting.

There are not many of our rural practices, that deserve more the disapprobation of the landed proprietor than that of pollarding trees.[74] “It is an evil under the sun, and common among men.” Here it is universal. This system of cutting off the heads of the young trees in the hedge-rows is resorted to by the farmer for the purpose of forcing them, thus deprived of their leaders, to throw out collateral shoots, serving for stakes for the fences, and for firewood. The purposes are effected; but of all hopes of timber, or profit to the proprietor, there is an end. No trees suffer more in this respect than the ash. Prohibitions against mangling trees, in agreements, are usual; but, with some exceptions in regard to oak, little attention seems paid to the covenant, as is obvious on the most cursory view of the country in any direction; whereas the ash is not a less valuable tree, from its thriving more universally in all situations, and becoming saleable in a shorter period. One or two generations must pass before an oak should be felled; but the ash becomes useful wood while its more respected companion is but a sapling. These prohibitions should not simply be engrossed on the parchment, but the agent ought strictly to notice any infringement; and young ash trees should be more especially guarded because they are the most likely to suffer, from their producing the greatest quantity of lop in the shortest time. The injury done by this practice to the present landlord and his successors is beyond estimation, as the numbers destroyed, and the vigor of their growth, must be first known; but there is not a farm of any extent from which hundreds of ash trees might not have been felled, had their growth been permitted, making an annual return; whereas nothing can be obtained now or hereafter for the proprietor, and only a few stakes and bavins for the farmer.[75] It is by no means an uncommon thing, to observe every ash tree in a hedge reduced to stumps by successive pollardings. Many a landlord would shudder at the thought of breaking up an old productive sward, and not regard the topping of an ash; whereas this latter act is infinitely more injurious, ultimately, than the former. The land may, and will probably, recover, but the tree is lost for ever, as to any profitable purposes for the owner. The farmer might perhaps tell the agent when he remonstrated, that he must have firewood, and hedging stuff; but the wants of the former have decreased by the facility of obtaining other fuel, and neither is to be supplied by the landlord at such a ruinous subversion of present and future benefit. I am not so silly as to enlarge upon the beauty of what has been called “picturesque farming;” but when we cast our eyes over the country, and see such rows of dark, club-headed posts, we cannot but remark upon the unsightly character they present, and consider it neither laudable to deform our beautiful country by the connivance, nor proper attention to individual profit to allow the continuation of it. The ash, after this mutilation, in a few years become flattened at the summit, moisture lodges in it, and decay commences, the central parts gradually mouldering away, though for many years the sap wood will throw out vigorous shoots for the hatchet. The goat moth now too commences its mordications, and the end is not distant. But the wood of the ash appears in every stage subject to injury; when in a dry state the weevils mine holes through it; when covered by its bark, it gives harbor to an infinite variety of insects, which are the appointed agents for the removal of the timber: the ashen bar of a stile, or a post, we may generally observe to be regularly scored by rude lines diverging from a central stem, like a trained fruit-tree, by the meanderings of a little insect (ips niger, &c.), being the passages of the creatures feeding on the wood.

There is one race of trees, the willow, very common about us, that is so universally subject to this pollarding, for the purpose of providing stakes and hurdles for the farm, that probably few persons have ever seen a willow tree. At any rate a sight of one grown unmutilated from the root is a rare occurrence. The few that I have seen constituted trees of great beauty; but as the willow, from the nature of its wood, can never be valuable as a timber tree, perhaps by topping it we obtain its best services. In the county of Gloucester there are several remarkable trees of different species now growing, but I am not acquainted with any greater natural curiosity of this sort than an uncommonly fine willow tree in the meadows on the right of the Spa-house at Gloucester. There are two of them; the species I forget, but one tree is so healthy and finely grown, that it deserves every attention, and should be preserved as a unique specimen, an example of what magnitude this despised race may attain when suffered to proceed in its own unrestrained vigor.

Dec. 30.—A cold foggy morning, the ground covered with a white frost; about twelve o’clock the sun burst out with great brilliancy, and life and light succeeded to torpor and gloom; a steam immediately arose from our garden beds and plowed lands, giving us a very strong example of the rapid manner in which the matter of heat (caloric) will at times unite with water. Half an hour before, this water was frozen and inert; but the instant that the sun’s rays fell upon it, their heat was imbibed, and the icy matter converted into a body lighter than the atmosphere by which it was surrounded, and passed into it in the vapor we have just noticed. I was the more particular in observing this common event, as it afforded a forcible illustration of the invisible evaporation which is constantly going forward, the unremitting changes in operation, the action and reaction of the earth and its products with the atmosphere. During the night, and the earlier parts of the morning, water was falling on the earth in minute particles, constituting what we call fog; then out burst the sun, and reclaimed this moisture which had fallen, and we could see it obeying the mandate, and pass away in steam. In the evening it will probably return again in fog, or in rain, when the atmosphere cools; and thus a constant visible intelligence is going on. How much insensible intercourse takes place we know not, but we can comprehend its agency by the effects and events that manifest themselves. Our country people think these “rokings” (reekings) of the earth greatly favorable to the growth of vegetation, supposing it occasioned by the internal heat of the earth producing a vapor like that from fermenting soil, thus warming the roots; but if the theory be defective, the fact may be true, by the caloric in the sun’s rays promoting the decomposition of the water, or separating the component parts (oxygen and hydrogen), which uniting with other matters contained in the earth and atmosphere (carbon and carbonic acid) become by this means the basis of all our fruits, our sweets, our sours, resins, &c., in the vegetable world; and hence there is a constant decomposition of water going forward by these alternations, and a constant formation of matters beneficial and necessary for the various inhabitants of the earth. When we perceive that a shower of rain has revived or promoted the increase of vegetation, we must understand, that the mere wetting it has not accomplished this; but that the vegetable has by means of its foliage, aided by light and heat, decomposed or separated the combined matters of the water, and taken from it certain portions as essential to its vigor, or been revictualled, in a manner, by the nutriment contained in the water.

Jan. 10.—The ground covered with snow, the pools with ice, trees and hedges leafless, and patched here and there with a mantle of white, present a cheerless, dreary void; no insects are animating the air, and all our songsters are silent and away; a few miserable thrushes are hopping on the ditch-bank, swept bare by the wind; and the robin puffing out his feathers, and contracting his neck into his body, is peeping with his fine bright eyes into the windows from the cypress bough. A few evergreens are waving their sprays, and glittering in the light, yet making but poor compensation for the variety, the flutter, the verdure, of our summer. Though we have little natural beauty to note or to record, we are not left without a testimony of an overruling Power; and, however sad and melancholy things may appear at the first view, yet a more steady observation will manifest to us a presiding Providence and Mercy. Frost and snow are but cheerless subjects for contemplation, yet I would add a reflection in my Journal of our passing events, or rather recall from memory the truth, that science has made known to us, revived by the sight of that frozen pool. There is one universal body, inherent in every known substance in nature, latent heat, which chemists have agreed to call “caloric.” By artificial means bodies may be deprived of certain portions of it; and then the substance most usually contracts, and increases in weight. Water is an exception to this; for in losing a part of its heat, the cause of its fluidity, and becoming ice, it expands, and is rendered lighter, by inclosing, during the operation, more or less of atmospheric air: consequently it swims, covering the surface. To this very simple circumstance, ice floating and not sinking,[76] are the banks and vicinities of all the rivers, lakes, pools, or great bodies of water in northern Europe, Asia, and America, rendered habitable, and what are now the most fertile and peopled would be the most sterile and abandoned, were it not for this law of nature. Had ice been so heavy as to sink in water, the surface on freezing would have fallen to the bottom, and a fresh surface would be presented for congelation; this would then descend in its turn, and unite with the other; and thus during a hard frost successive surfaces would be presented, and fall to the bottom, as long as the frost or any fluid remained. By this means the whole body of the water would become a dense concretion of ice: its inhabitants would not only perish, but the indurated mass would resist the influence of the sun of any summer to thaw it, and continue congealed throughout the year, chilling the earth in its neighborhood, and the winds that passed over it, preventing the growth of vegetation in the former, or blighting and destroying it by the influence of the latter.

Winter is called a dull season; and to the sensations of some, the enjoyments of others, and, perhaps, to the vision of all, it is a most cheerless period. This is so universally felt, that we always associate the idea of pleasure with the return of spring: whatsoever our occupations or employments may be, though its sleety storms and piercing winds may at times chill the very current in our veins, yet we consider it as a harbinger of pleasurable hours and grateful pursuits. We commence our undertakings, or defer them till spring. The hopes or prospects of the coming year are principally established in spring; and we trust that the delicate health of the blossoms round our hearths, which has faded in the chilling airs of winter, may be restored by the mild influence of that season. Yet winter must be considered as the time in which Nature is most busily employed; silent in her secret mansions, she is now preparing and compounding the verdure, the flowers, the nutriment of spring; and all the fruits and glorious profusion of our summer year are only the advance of what has been ordained and fabricated in these dull months. All these advances require Omnipotent wisdom and power to perfect; but perhaps a more exalted degree of wisdom and power has been requisite to call them into a state of being from nothing. The branch of that old pear-tree now extended before me, is denuded and bare, presenting no object of curiosity or of pleasure; but, had we the faculty to detect, and power to observe, what was going forward in its secret vessels, beneath its rugged, unsightly covering, what wonder and admiration would it create!—the materials manufacturing there for its leaf, and its bark; for the petals and parts of its flowers; the tubes and machinery that concoct the juices, modify the fluids, and furnish the substance of the fruit, with multitudes of other unknown operations and contrivances, too delicate and mysterious to be seen, or even comprehended, by the blindness, the defectibility of our nature—things of which we have no information, being beyond the range of any of the works or the employments of mankind! We may gather our pear, be pleased with its form or its flavor; we may magnify its vessels, analyze its fluids, yet be no more sensible of its elaborate formation, and the multiplicity of influences and operations requisite to conduct it to our use, than a wandering native of a polar clime could be of the infinite number of processes that are necessary to furnish a loaf of bread, from plowing the soil to drawing from the oven. This is but an isolated instance, amidst thousands of others more complicated still. How utterly inconceivable then are the labors, the contrivances, the combinations, that are going forward, and accomplishing, in this our dull season of the year, in that host of nature’s productions with which, shortly, we shall everywhere be surrounded!

Jan. 20th.—A keen frost, and the ground covered with snow, present a scene of apparent suffering and want to many of our poor little birds; but the preservation of the fowls of the air, which sow not nor gather into barns, has been beautifully instanced to us, as a manifest evidence of a superintending Providence: the full force of this testimony is most strongly impressed upon us in a season like this, when winter rules with rigor, and we marvel how the life of these beings can be supported when the waters are bound up, and earth and all its products hidden by a dense covering of snow. Many of the small birds obtain subsistence by picking the refuse of our corn-stacks, by seeds scattered about our homestalls and cattle-yards, but multitudes of others are in no way dependent upon man for shelter or support, do not even approach his dwelling, but are maintained by the universal bounty of Providence; as the woodlark, the meadow-lark, the chats, and several others; but by what means they are maintained in a period like this is not quite manifest. The portion that they require is probably small, yet it must be insect food, and the chats, larks, and gray wagtails, seem busily engaged in providing for their wants upon the furze sprays, amidst frozen grass, or upon the banks of ditches and pools; and as no insect but the winter gnat is now found in such places, it is probable that this creature, which sports in numbers in every sunny gleam, yields them in this season much of their support. Some of the insectivorous birds have at such periods no apparent difficulty in supporting their existence, finding their food in a dormant state in mosses, lichens, and crevices of trees and buildings; but for those which require animated creatures, I am sensible of none that are to be procured but this gnat, and it possibly has been endowed with its peculiar habits and dispositions for a purport like this. We have many examples in nature of similar provisions, wherein one race supports the existence and requirements of another. The molusca and insects of the deep continue the life of some, the feeble races of the air and waters maintain the beings of others, and the beast of the wild seeks his food amidst those which inhabit with him; but where this chain ends, human faculties will probably never be able to ascertain. The remarkable fact which our microscopes make known to us, that all infusions of natural substances in water will produce life, however extraordinary the form may be, seems to denote a continuation of being beyond any possible comprehension, and probably subservient to the existence of each other: the minute creature that floats a hardly perceptible atom in the water of the ditch, and which subsists many of the animals which inhabit those places, feeds upon smaller than itself, and those again, possibly, upon more minute ones which the vegetable infusions of those places give existence to: here the investigation terminates, but the thread unbroken continues, probably through endless gradations, perceptible to infinity alone.

Having applauded the operations of Nature with so much cordiality, possibly I may be called her “enthusiastic adorer,” but the epithet must be disclaimed. None can respect the works of creation more, but ’tis not with an ecstasy that glows, fades, and expires, but with a calm deep- rooted conviction implanted in the boy, and increased by years of notice and experience. I have followed her footsteps, though far, very far distant, as an humble admirer of perfection, nor can my veneration cease whilst reason continues undisturbed.

* * * * *

Sept. 8th, 1828.—A remarkably dry and exhausting day, not from any peculiar influence of the solar heat, but from the arid state of the air, which was very distressing to our feelings, and all tender vegetation became languid and suffering under its influence. I endeavored to ascertain the power of absorption possessed by the air at the time by an experiment, rude enough to be sure, yet it tended in some measure to indicate the rapid manner in which fluids are exhaled in particular states of the atmosphere. A linen cloth twelve inches square, which had absorbed an ounce avoirdupois of water, was suspended in the shade in a free current of air, and in the course of ten minutes it had lost 436 grains, equal to one-sixteenth of its weight. This great evaporation was principally effected by the absorbent power of the air, and manifested in some degree the exhausting influence that was passing over the earth and the vegetation exposed to the current of air; and as the roots could not derive sufficient moisture from the soil to supply what was thus drawn from the leaves, the foliage became languid and flaccid in consequence. The linen, containing the same quantity of water, was then spread upon a short turf in the sun and in the space of ten minutes it lost 368 grains, and this was effected without any particular influencing current of air; accordingly, the evaporation from an acre of moist land covered with vegetation would exceed one hundred and twenty-two cwt. of water in an hour! As the quantity drawn from the vegetation on the soil may be equal to the shelter its foliage affords to the earth, no very accurate data can be drawn from this experiment; for different soils will give out their moisture more or less easily, and succulent vegetables be more influenced than those of a drier nature; but it served at the time to indicate the portion of moisture that was escaping from a given horizontal surface. From the invisible and insensible nature of evaporation, its influences are not always considered; but such an action on the surfaces of things as that related above, must put into operation all the inherent powers of matter susceptible of impulse, and probably would produce effects which we might suppose to be accomplished by the agency of other means.

Nov. 10.—Many effusions of the mind have been produced by the approach or existence of the seasons of our year, which seem naturally to actuate our bodily or mental feelings through the agency of the eye, or temperature of the air. The peculiar silence that prevails in autumn, like the repose of wearied nature, seems to mark the decline and termination of being in many things that animated our summer months; the singing of the bird is rare, feeble, and melancholy; the hum of the insect is not heard; the breeze passes by us like a sigh from nature: we hear it, and it is gone for ever. But it is the vegetable tribes, which at this season most particularly influence our feeling, and excite our attention. We see the fruits of the earth stored up for our use in that dull season “in which there will be neither earing nor harvest,” the termination and reward of the labors of man. But this day, November 10, presented such a scene of life and mortality, that it could not be passed by without viewing it as an admonition, a display of what has been, and is. There had occurred during the night a severe white frost; and, standing by a green-house filled with verdure, fragrance, and blossom, I was surrounded in every direction by the parents of all this gaiety, in blackness, dissolution, and decay. But the very day before, they had attracted the most merited admiration and delight by the splendor of their bloom and the vigor of their growth; but now just touched by the icy finger of the night, they had become a mass of unsightly ruins and confusion. Once the gay belles of the parterre, they fluttered their hour, a generation of existent loveliness; their youthful successors, unpermitted to mingle with them, peeped from their retreats above, seeming almost to repine at their confinement; they have bloomed their day, another race succeeds, and their hour will be accomplished too. This was so perfectly in unison with the shifting scenes of life, the many changes of the hour, that it seemed inseparably connected with a train of reflection, with the precepts which all nature points out—her still small whisperings for the ears of those that can hear them.

The extraordinary tendency that Nature has to produce, and the vigilant perseverance she maintains to occupy all substances as a soil for her productions, when they arrive at a state fitting for her purposes, is a well-known fact, and is perfectly in consistency with the uniform habit she preserves, of letting “no fragment be lost.” All things tend upwards, from some original, through an infinity of gradations, though the beginning and termination may not always be perceived, nor the links of this vast chain be found. The most obscure plants, agarics or mucor, as far as we know, perfect their seed, and give birth to other generations; but there is a fine green substance, observable upon the sprays of trees, stems of various shrubs in every hedge, upon old rails and exposed wood-work, leaving a powdery mark upon one’s coat that has rubbed against such places, which I have always considered as the very lowest rudiment of vegetation. This matter, submitted to examination in the microscope, presents no foliage or plant-like form, but appears a kind of pollen, a capsule, or a perfected seed, suspended on a fine fibre; but from the extreme smallness of it I speak with hesitation, not being able to define it satisfactorily with the most powerful lens. If it be, as I have conjectured, a perfected seed, it probably is the origin of many of those minute mosses, that become rooted, we know not by what means, upon banks, stones, barks, &c., in such profusion; but here all investigation ceases: by what agency this fine seed has been so profusely scattered, or from what source it sprang, is hidden from us, and we can no more satisfactorily conjecture, than we can account for those myriads of blighting insects, which so suddenly infest our grain, our fruits, and our plants. There is an inquisition, where all human knowledge terminates; the bounds of nature have never been defined.

Without considering the various sources of enjoyment and pleasure bestowed upon an intelligent creature, what a scene of glorious display might be opened to man through the agency of the eye alone! Motives we must abandon, as probably they are beyond our comprehensions; but were the powers of vision so enlarged or cleared as to bring to observation the now unknown fabrication of animate and inanimate things, what astonishment would be elicited! The seeds, the pollen of plants, the capillary vessels and channels of their several parts, with their concurrent actions, the clothing of various creatures, and all that host of unperceived wisdom around us! Yet probably the mind, constituted as it now is, would be disturbed by the constant excitement such wonders would create; but at present, though sparingly searched out by the patient investigator, and but obscurely seen, they solace and delight; “cheer, but not inebriate.”

“Oh good beyond compare!
If thus thy meaner works are fair,
If thus thy bounties gild the span
Of ruin’d earth and sinful man,
How glorious must that mansion be
Where thy redeem’d shall live with thee!”

* * * * *

And now I think I have pretty well run over my diary, the humble record of the birds, the reptiles, the plants, and inanimate things around me. They who have had the patience to read these my notes, will probably be surprised that I could take the trouble to register such accounts of such things; and I might think so too, did I not know how much occupation and healthful recreation the seeking out these trifles have afforded me, rendering, besides, all my rural rambles full of enjoyment and interest: companions and intimates were found in every hedge, on every bank, whose connexions I knew something of, and whose individual habits had become familiar by association; and thus this narrative of my contemporaries was formed. Few of us, perhaps, in reviewing our by-gone days, could the hours return again, but would wish many of them differently disposed of, and more profitably employed: but I gratefully say, that portion of my own passed in the contemplation of the works of nature is the part which I most approve—which has been most conducive to my happiness; and, perhaps, from the sensations excited by the wisdom and benevolence perceived, not wholly unprofitable to a final state, and which might be passed again, could I but obtain a clearer comprehension of the ways of Infinite Wisdom. If in my profound ignorance I received such gratification and pleasure; what would have been my enjoyment and satisfaction, “if the secrets of the Most High had been with me, and when by His light I had walked through darkness?”

APPENDIX.

BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

NOTE A.
THE “CONEYGAR” AND “LODGE FARM,” p. 11.

It is one of the pleasing characteristics of an old and highly civilized country, that appropriate local names for the smaller hamlets, farms, and single rural dwellings, are in general and familiar use. Every thing which gives to the household home, whether of rich or poor, a pleasant distinctive character, an additional hold on the memory and the affections of its inmates, must always prove a merit; and many, assuredly, have been the instances in which the familiar name of the family roof has continued through life a hallowed sound to the wanderers of the household band it once sheltered. In England, this custom—so natural, so kindly, when undisturbed by pretension—is very general, and it is almost needless to say that wherever these names go back for half a century or more, they are always appropriate, and often peculiar, or it may be, interesting from historical or other associations. In very many instances, not only do the farm-house and the cottage bear suitable names, but even the different fields about them are all marked in the same way; this meadow, that grain-field, yonder copse, the knoll beyond, shall each be called by some simple term, familiar to the household of the farmer of the present day, as it was perhaps to his forefathers of past generations.

NOTE B.
THE POTATO, p. 30.

It has been clearly ascertained that the potato is indigenous to South America. Mr. Darwin, in his “Journal of Researches,” speaking of the Chonos Archipelago, on the coast of Chili, writes as follows:

“The _wild potato_ grows on these islands in great abundance, in the sandy, shelly soil, near the sea beach. The tallest plant was four feet in height. The tubers were generally small, but I found one, of an oval shape, two inches in diameter; they resembled, in every respect, and had the same smell as English potatoes; but when boiled they shrunk much, and were watery and insipid, without any bitter taste. They were undoubtedly indigenous here: they grow as far south, according to Mr. Low, as lat. 50°, and are called _Aquinas_ by the wild Indians of that part; the Chilotan Indians have a different name for them. Professor Henslow, who has examined the dried specimens which I brought home, says they are the same with those described by Mr. Sabine,[77] from Valparaiso, but that they form a variety, which by some botanists has been considered specifically distinct. It is remarkable that the same plant should be found on the sterile mountains of central Chili, where a drop of rain does not fall for more than six months, and within the damp forests of these southern islands.” Darwin’s “Journal of Researches,” Vol. II. p. 23, American edition.

NOTE C.
THE WYCH ELM, (_Ulmus Montana_,) p. 46.

The following account of the wych elm is given by Mr. Downing in his “_Landscape Gardening_:”

“The Scotch, or wych elm, (_ulmus montana_.) This is a tree of lower stature than the common European elm, its average height being about forty feet. The leaves are broad, rough, pointed, and the branches extend more horizontally, drooping at the extremities. The bark on the branches is comparatively smooth. It is a grand tree, ‘the head is so finely massed, and yet so well broken, as to render it one of the noblest of park trees; and where it grows wild amid the rocky scenery of its native Scotland, there is no tree which assumes so great, or so pleasing a variety of character.’ In general appearance the Scotch elm considerably resembles our white elm. Its most ornamental varieties are the spiry-topped elm, (_U. m. fastigiata_,) with singularly twisted leaves, and a very upright growth; the weeping Scotch elm, (_u. m. pendula_,) a very remarkable variety, the branches of which droop in a fan-like manner; and the smooth-leaved Scotch elm, (_u. m. glabra_.)”

NOTE D.
THE CARPENTER BEE, (_Megachile Centuncularis_,) p. 53.

The term _carpenter bee_ is now usually confined, in England, to those insects of the bee tribe which chisel out or rasp their nests in posts, or palings, &c. Their cells “consist of a tunnel excavated in the wood, and divided by thin partitions of clay into five or six compartments, each with its supply of pollen for the single inhabitant who is to emerge from the egg deposited therein.”

The bee referred to by Mr. Knapp, page 53, although inhabiting, at times, a wooden cell also, like the true “carpenter,” is more generally classed with the “upholsterer bees,” or those which line their nests with cuttings from leaves, and flowers. This leaf-cutter bee is thus alluded to in “Acheta Domestica:”

“Having excavated, or found her hole, (a cavity in ground, or wood, or wall, from six to ten inches deep,) she proceeds to construct within it, of the pieces of the leaf she cuts off, several cells, of the shape and about the size of a thimble, which she inserts successively, the bottom of one into the mouth of that below it. It takes from nine to twelve pieces of leaf to complete each cell, and as each is finished she stores it with a rose-colored conserve made chiefly of pollen and honey, collected from the flowers of the thistle. When to this magazine of sweets is superadded the egg from whence its future consumer is to spring, the provident provider of the store covers in the whole with three more pieces of leaf, cut in a circle, _as truly accurate as compasses could describe_. Room being left above the cover for the insertion of a succeeding cell, our “upholsterer” thus proceeds till her nursery tunnel is completely filled up.”

* * * “The leaves employed by the leaf-cutter, are materials of somewhat stubborn texture, those sometimes of the mountain ash, and birch, as well as the rose, herein enhancing the skill of their employer. It would seem, however, that pliability and thinness are qualities somewhat regarded, and most wonderfully discerned by the little artist in question; for we have noticed in more than one summer, the smooth, delicate, tender leaves of a dark variety of China rose, almost scolloped by the circles and ovals of her excision, while the foliage of the “cabbage” close by, has been left untouched, as if too coarse and common for her purpose.”—_Acheta Domestica._

Reaumur relates that a gardener at Rouen, once chancing to dig up the nest of a leaf-cutter bee, was so utterly amazed with the singular skill of the contrivance that he was terrified, and hastened with it to the priest of the parish, believing it to be nothing less than the work of witchcraft. Monsieur le Curé, it appears, had something of the same suspicions; he advised the man to carry the nest to Paris; the gardener, however, took it first to a distinguished Naturalist living at Rouen, who relieved the poor fellow’s mind by opening one of the cases and showing him the grub within.

We learn that there are several leaf-cutting or upholsterer bees, in the United States, although it is not probable that either is precisely similar to that alluded to by Mr. Knapp, and the author of Acheta Domestica.

NOTE E.
THE ROSE-BEETLE, (_Cetonia Aurata_,) p. 53.

The Rose-Chafer, or Rose-Beetle, the _Cetonia aurata_ of entomologists, is a beautiful insect, very common in England but unknown in our own country. “On the back of the corslet burnished green and gold are the prevailing hues, on breast-plate, cuisse, and gauntlet the lustre of the precious metal is predominant, mingled with changeable reflections of purplish crimson,” says the writer of Acheta Domestica. “Like the rest of its tribe, this pretty beetle undergoes the usual triple metamorphosis of insect life. From an egg laid within the earth, he emerges a grub or larva, to feed on roots, most usually those of the rose. * * Thus, hermit-like, and upon this hermit’s fare, he lives in dark seclusion for four years, and when these are over, constructs for himself, about the month of March, a still more straitened cell—an earth-formed case, resembling a pigeon’s egg. He proceeds, under its cover, to the second stage of _pupa_—from thence to the third and last estate; and after remaining another fortnight under ground, for his enameled mail to acquire hardness, comes forth in all his splendor to meet the roses. The antennæ are of curious and very elegant formation. They each terminate in a knob composed of several laminæ or plates, opening or shutting like the leaves of a book, and which also like a book, can be put away at the pleasure of their insect owner, on a shelf or deep cavity on either side its head. They are always thus put carefully away when the chafer is inactive, or asleep. It has been noticed as a singular fact that the rose-beetle has been found not unfrequently, while in its two first stages, the tenant of an ant-hill, and that without being attacked by its carnivorous inhabitants. It is hence called, in some countries, “king of the ants;” and it is said also that German cattle dealers invest it with supernatural powers, and feed it carefully in beds as a means of insuring prosperity to their herds and fortunes.”—_Acheta Domestica, second series, p. 72, English edition._

The true rose-chafer has not been found among our American beetles.

NOTE F.
DYER’S BROOM, (_Genista Tinctoria_) p. 58.

There are many species of Broom in the old world. The common Broom of England has large, yellow, butterfly-shaped blossoms, and growing, as it does, in large patches on waste lands, produces a vary brilliant effect when in bloom. But it is also very useful in its way. The twigs were probably the first besoms of the housewives of old, in days when witches were believed to ride on broom-sticks to their gatherings; certain it is, at least, that our brooms of the present hour derive their name from the early use of the twigs of the plant for similar purposes.

Cordage, matting, and even coarse cloth have been made of the fibres of the Broom. Houses are sometimes thatched with the twigs, which have been also used for tanning instead of oak bark.

It was a sprig of the Broom or Genet, as it is called in French, worn in the helmet of a count of Anjou, of olden time, which became at length a family badge, and gave the name of Plantagenet to the race of English kings, who for three centuries reigned over our forefathers.

Dyer’s Broom, woad-waxen, _genista tinctoria_, has become naturalized here and there in some parts of New York and New England.

NOTE G.
THE DESTRUCTION OF INSECTS BY PLANTS, p. 62.

That singular American plant the sarracenia, pitcher-plant, hunters-cup, or side-saddle flower, as it is variously called, is a striking instance of the peculiarity referred to in the text, by Mr. Knapp. It is well known to all who are familiar with our native plants, that the hollow leaves of the sarracenia are generally found to contain more or less water, with dead insects of various tribes which have been drowned in the liquid. One might have supposed that this was purely accidental, but it is not impossible that the plant may require for its sustenance a certain amount of animal nourishment. The experiment of an English gardener would lead one to believe that such is the case; taking a hint from the drowned flies usually found in the hollow leaves of the pitcher-plant he tried a singular experiment; he fed the vegetable on beef-steak, small pieces of the beef being laid within the hollow leaves. The superior beauty and size of the particular plant treated in this way, subsequently proved that the surmise was correct, and that the pitcher-plant is to a certain degree, _carnivorous_. Such may very possibly be the case with other flowers which are known to entrap insects of different kinds; they may need these as nourishment. Generally speaking, it is the blossom and not, as in the instance of the Sarracenia, the leaf which allures the insect and thus destroys it; in this sense the hunter’s-cup is more ogre-like than most of its companions possessing the same dangerous power, since it is not only during the season of flowering, but throughout the summer that unwary flies and gnats are drowned in its leafy reservoirs.

NOTE H.
THE IVY, (_Hedera Helix_,) p. 64.

The Ivy is found throughout most of the countries of Europe, and also in parts of Asia and Africa. It was one of the sacred plants of the old Egyptians, and held the same character among the Greeks also. In our own western hemisphere the Ivy was unknown until introduced by the colonists from Europe; nor does it seem likely ever to become, like so many other contributions of the old countries, naturalized here; our dryer summers or colder winters, do not apparently agree with it. Possessing one qualification rare among climbing plants, that of being an evergreen, it may, on this account, be considered as the finest of the purely ornamental vines of temperate regions. It is believed to live to a very great age, as the parent stems of vines still attached to buildings some centuries old, are found nearly as large as the trunks of good-sized forest trees.

NOTE I.
THE SNOWDROP, page 70.

Mr. Knapp tells us in the text, that in England the Snowdrop will linger longer than any other plant on the site of a deserted garden, outlasting, in this way, as a memorial of human tillage even the rose- bush, the plumb-tree, or the daffodil. With us the pansy, heart’s-ease, or garden-violet appears to have something of the same character; we have found it opening its pretty, lowly blossoms among the grass, the only vestige of a flower-garden, ploughed up more than thirty years earlier.

NOTE J.
THE VERVAIN, page 71.

We have in the United States several native Vervains, and one species of European origin; the nettle-leaved Vervain, _Verbena urticifolia_, has become one of our road-side weeds. We are told that verbena was a Latin name given to any sacred herb, and by no means confined to the single family of plants to which the term Vervain is now applied.

NOTE K.
THE MISTLETOE, page 71.

The Mistletoe has been sometimes asserted to be unknown in America; but this is an error. The yellow Mistletoe, _Viscum flaviscens_, is found on the trunks of old forest trees, the elm, the oak, and the hickory, in the middle, western, and southern states of the union. This singular parasitic plant has yellowish leaves, with white berries tinged with the same color. _See Gray’s Botany._

NOTE L.
DYER’S WEED, WOLD, (_Luteola reseda_,) p. 72.

Dyer’s Weed, Weld, Wold, _Luteola reseda_, has become partially naturalized, here and there, in western New York. It is a plant about three feet high, from whose leaf and stem a yellow coloring matter is obtained, which is preferred to all other substances for giving a brilliant greenish-lemon tint. It is also much used for dyeing silk a golden yellow.

The reader is probably aware that while many minerals and a certain number of animal substances are employed in coloring, the largest portion of our dyes are borrowed from the vegetable kingdom.

NOTE M.
SULPHUR, OR BRIMSTONE BUTTERFLY, (_Gonepteryx Rhamni_,) p. 74.

“This is the Brimstone Butterfly, which, gaily painted,

“Soon
Explores the tepid noon,
And fondly trusts its tender dyes
To feeble suns and flattering skies.”

“It has been supposed by some that this early visitant, (also a late one,) is, like the above, a winter survivor; but from the trim of his yellow robes, usually so fresh and glossy, it would seem more likely that, instead of being laid up—not in lavender, but perhaps in ivy—they are of the newest spring fashion. Be this as it may, he is the very pink, or, as he has been more properly considered, the very primrose of Papillons, sometimes to be seen like a living shadow of the primrose’s self, fluttering beside it in the sunny hedge-row, or the sheltered copse. We may know him by the cut of his bright, sulphur-colored pinions—each, instead of being rounded, ending in a smooth tail-like angle.

“Of all the wings of the butterflies, these bear perhaps the closest similitude to floral productions, and on each, as if to perfect the resemblance of the delicate, flower-like coloring, is a reddish spot, an exact copy of that often produced by decay or accident on the surface of a yellow petal. In the beautiful raised bearing of their reverse, the pinions of the “Brimstone” are no less correspondent with the same; but those of the female, which, instead of yellow, are of a greenish white, resemble perhaps yet more nearly, the leaf of a poplar on its under side. The dye of the antennæ—that purplish pink so frequent upon tender leaf and flower-stems—also the clothing of the body, a soft satin down like that by which stalks and seed pods are so often covered, are all alike accordant with the floral character of this most elegant flutterer of the spring. This pretty butterfly comes of a pretty caterpillar, with a smooth green coat, dotted or shagreened with black, and marked by a whitish line along the back and sides. It is said to feed usually on the leaves of the hawthorn and alder.”—_Acheta Domestica._

NOTE N.
FURZE, (_Ulex Europæus_,) p. 77.

The Furze, Gorse or Whin, is a low, shrubby plant, common in barren soils throughout western Europe, and belonging to the natural order _leguminosæ_. The yellow flowers, covering broad tracts of untilled land, produce a brilliant and striking effect when in bloom. It is said that Linnæus, when he first saw them, fell on his knees with expressions of delight at their beauty, lamenting that the plant should be wanting in Sweden. It is occasionally cultivated in poor soils for fodder, as horses are fond of it, and the cattle are also fed with it in some parts of England, after it has been bruised in a sort of mill. In tracts of country where wood is scarce, it is frequently used by the cottagers for fuel. The pods of the Whin, or Furze, when ripe burst open with a loud crackling sound, which is described as pleasing, of a warm summer’s day. We Americans have no other acquaintance with the Furze than what is derived from books and prints.

NOTE O.
THE MAPLE, (_Acer campestre_,) p. 79.

The common English Maple, _Acer campestre_, is wholly different from our own various species. It is a tree found throughout the greater part of Europe south of Scotland and Sweden, and is observed as far east as the Caucasus. In England, however, it is little more than a bush, or small tree of no great beauty, and whose wood is chiefly used for turning cups and bowls, such as hermits used in days when ballads were written about them. Its leaves are heart-shaped, with either two or five segments which are not serrated; its flowers are erect, in branching corymbs.

In the southern Caucasus this maple is said to become a fine tree, the wood being in request for its hardness; and it is used for purposes less peaceful than the hermits bowl, being worked up into gun-stocks.

The Sycamore-maple, _Acer pseudo-platanus_, is a very different tree, of noble growth, indigenous to southern Europe. This has been transplanted to England where it is much cultivated, and has been called the Sycamore from an erroneous notion that it is the same as the Sycamore of the east. Neither of these Maples will compare, for autumnal coloring, with those of our American woods. The true English Maple alluded to in the text, is described as “shifting its dress to ochery shades, then trying a deeper tint, and lastly assuming an orange vest.” This is pale indeed compared with the Rubens-like coloring of our native trees of the same family.

The Maples are a very numerous and widely diffused tribe of trees. No less than thirty-four species are enumerated by botanists, belonging to different parts of the earth.

NOTE P.
AGARICS, page 85.

Scientific writers have examined no less than a thousand different species of Agarics, or those fungi belonging to the class of mushrooms, and probably there are many more than have yet been enumerated. Some few only of these plants are edible; a large proportion are highly poisonous to man, while the character of many more have never yet been ascertained. It is particularly remarkable that those which are found wholesome in one country often become very dangerous in a different soil; in England, for instance, only three kinds are eaten, the _Agaricus campestris_, or common mushroom, the _A. pratensis_, or fairy- ring mushroom, and the _A. Georgii_; but in southern Europe many more are used as food, and among these a number of the same species which in Great Britain have proved very dangerous. In Kamschatka again, the _Agaricus muscarius_, considered a deadly poison in England, is found quite harmless, and is regularly used as food.

The following directions have been given in avoiding poisonous mushrooms; all those possessing either of the characteristics mentioned being dangerous:

1. Such as have a cap very thin compared with the gills.

2. Such as have the stalk growing from one side of the cap.

3. Those in which the gills are of equal length.

4. Such as have a milky juice.

5. Those that readily produce a dark, watery liquid.

6. All those that have a thin, web-like substance wound about the superior portion, or collar of the stalk.

As yet little has been printed regarding our American Agarics, while those of Europe have been very closely studied by many scientific men, who have published the result of their investigations. The following is a list of those mentioned by Mr. Knapp in the volume before the reader: _agaricus fimiputris_; _a. æruginosus_; _a. odorus_; _a. fragrans_; _a. varius_; _a. oreades_; _a. georgii_ or _arvensis_; _a. surrectus_; _a. caseus_, (or _infundibuliformis_;) _a. campestrus_; _a. pratensis_; _a. muscarius_; _hydnum floriforme_, or _h. compactum_; _helvella mitra_, (or _h. crispa_;) _lycoperdon cinereum_, or _didynium cinereum_; _l. fornicatum_, or _geaster fornicatus_; _l. stellatum_, or _g. hygrometicus_; _morchella esculenta_; _phallus impudicus_; _clavaria hypoxylon_.

These Agarics are all found in the United States, with the exception of two species, _a. varius_, and _a. surrectus_, considered as yet unrecognized. _A. georgii_, is regarded as a variety only of _a. arvensis_.

The esculent morell, _morchella esculenta_, noted by Mr. Knapp as very rare in his own neighborhood, is widely diffused throughout the United States. In some parts of the state of New York it is prized as a delicacy for the table, and in the old orchards of Westchester county, for instance, is by no means uncommon.

NOTE Q.
THE MARTEN, (_Mustela Martes_,) p. 95.

The American Sable, or Pine Marten, _Mustela Martes_, is believed by some Naturalists to differ decidedly from that of Europe. It is a very active, nocturnal animal, twenty or thirty inches in length, and found in old forests between forty and sixty-eight degrees of north latitude. Trees are exclusively the homes of these pretty little creatures, which are so perseveringly hunted for their beautiful furs. Their skins are sold for one or two dollars apiece, according to their condition, color, &c. As the Martens have litters of six or eight young at a time, they would probably be almost as common in our woods as squirrels, if it were not for the value man has attached to their fur.

NOTE R.
THE HEDGEHOG, (_Erinaceus Europæus_,) p. 96.