there are two recognized species of Right-whale, one Caperea antipodorum (Gray), not found further north than 40° south latitude; the other, Eubalaena australis (Gray), found as near the equator as 20° south latitude. Dr. Gray does not recognize Balana biscayensis as a good species, and accounts for the absence of the Right-whales, formerly found in British waters, from the disturbed state of the seas, owing to the great increase in traffic of ships, and especially steam-vessels, which, he says, "appears to restrict their visits, and especially their breeding, more to the Arctic portion; thus some whales, which were

been seen in summer as far north in Baffin's Bay as ships have succeeded in penetrating, whilst its southward range in winter was always limited by a rather northerly degree of latitude. This, they show, has gone on with the greatest regularity for at least 80 years, during which they have constantly made their appearance at the same places, at the same season, without the slightest alteration having taken place. The fact of the whales always following the ice floes will account for their being found in the spring in different latitudes; thus, on the Greenland coast, they are found, at this season, in latitude 65° 25'; but in Davis'

formerly said to be common on the coast of Britain | as the Right-whales, no longer visit this country." Eschricht, however, has clearly shown that the habits and localities frequented by the northern Right-whale have remained unchanged for many years, as proved by the record kept by the whaling stations established by the Danish government on the west coast of Greenland. The fishery at these stations was prosecuted from the shore when the whales appeared upon the coast in the winter months; as the spring advanced they followed the receding ice, and have

Strait, in 61° to 62°, always, however, inseparable from the ice. Messrs. Eschricht and Reinhardt thus conclude: "It seems, therefore, that the whales have not retreated farther north, as they are still found within precisely the same limits in which they were found at the beginning of the persecution, but in numbers so diminished that the fishery will hardly repay the trouble and expense attending it." The southern limit of the Right-whale in the Northern ocean may be shown by a line drawn from the coast of Lapland at 70°, just touching the southern point of Iceland,

and ending on the coast of Labrador at about 55° north latitude.

The whale-trade, which once employed so many hardy seamen, is now reduced to very narrow limits, and appears to have passed almost entirely into the hands of the English, or rather Scotch. The Biscayans were not content with exterminating the whales found in their own seas, but followed them up to the north; in 1721 they had twenty vessels in the Greenland fishery from Biscay; the Dutch also took a large part in the trade; in Norfolk, Yarmouth and Lynn both sent out vessels. In 1801 twenty ships were employed from the port of Yarmouth in this fishery, and returned from Greenland with rich cargoes; but heavy losses subsequently occurred, and early in the present century the whale fishery from Yarmouth was abandoned. At Lynn it must have ceased about the same time. During the nine years ending 1818 there was an average of ninety-one English and forty-one Scotch ships employed in the trade; in 1830 they were reduced to forty-one English and fifty Scotch. 1830 was a very disastrous year in the whale trade; nineteen British ships were totally wrecked, and twelve seriously injured in that season. The number since then has been gradually decreasing, till at the present time Dundee and Peterhead are the only two ports in Great Britain which are engaged in the whale fishery. Dundee sends out ten powerful steam-vessels, which leave about the beginning of May, and if fortunate in filling up, return about the beginning of November. The expense now incurred renders it necessary that a large number of whales should be taken to make the voyage pay: the Arctic, in her voyage of 1873, captured twenty-eight whales, which were estimated to produce in oil and bone £18,925, or about £678 per whale, the best whale, a female with sucker, was estimated at £1,500, and the smallest at only £110. An average whale produces 9 tons of oil, a ton measuring 252 gallons, and 7 ft. 6 in. of whalebone; the longest bone cut of the twenty-eight fish was 11 ft. 9 in. and the shortest 2 ft. 6 in. was considered a very successful year. An interesting account of a whaling voyage in the ship Arctic, and full particulars of the mode pursued in taking, and subsequent treatment of the fish, is given by Captain A. H. Markham, in his "Whaler's Cruise to Baffin's Bay."

This

The usual length of a full-grown Right-whale is about 50 feet; but Dr. Brown, in his paper on the Cetaceans of the Greenland Seas (P. Z. S., 1868, p. 539), gives the dimensions of one which measured 65 feet. The general colour is black. The mouth occupies about one-third of the entire length, and the baleen is from 10 to 12 feet long. This baleen, which is found depending from the upper jaw, consists of a number of horny plates, placed transversely along either side of the palate; they are arranged closely together, with the external edge smooth, and

gradually thinning off towards the inner margin, which ends in a fringe of long hair-like fibres: the number of laminæ is about 360 on each side.* The whale whilst feeding swims along with its mouth open, until it has collected a quantity of the small marine animals which form its food; then, closing its capacious under-jaw, it forces out the water between the plates of baleen, leaving the captive prey stranded on its huge tongue, when it swallows them at leisure. The food of the Greenland whale consists entirely of small marine animals, particularly a kind of shrimp, found in great abundance in the Arctic seas. This species is believed by Eschricht and Reinhardt to bring forth its single young one (rarely two) about the end of March or beginning of May, and the time of gestation to be thirteen or fourteen months, so that it will bring forth only every other year; Scoresby considers that they go eight or nine months, and bring forth in February or March.+ The young one is supposed to be suckled for twelve months. In disposition the Greenland whale is timid and retiring; the chief danger in its capture arises from its rapid descent when harpooned; the line is then carried out with such speed that, should it foul or all run out and not be immediately cut, the boat will be upset or carried under water. It has never been known to attack a boat, but accidents sometimes happen if approached too closely in its death 'flurry," which is said to be very terrible to witness. Its fondness for its young is such thut if the "sucker" is killed the old one readily falls a victim, and the whalers do not fail to avail themselves, for their own advantage, of this amiable trait in its character.

66

THE COLORADO POTATO-BEETLE. (Doryphora decemlineata, Say.)

L'

By E. C. RYE, F.Z.S.

ITTLE thought the American entomologist Say, when, in 1824, he characterized a comparatively insignificant Chrysomela from the Rocky Mountain region of the Upper Missouri, that his foster-beetle should, in less than the average life of man, so increase and multiply as to outrival the Egyptian plague of flies, or that this Yankee "bug' should scare the British lion. Yet so it is; and our Elizabethan arch-poet, who spoke of "the poor beetle that we tread upon," would, if his spirit revisited us, by the help of Dr. Slade, or any other medium, find that tables were indeed turned in the Victorian era, and that the beetle is likely to be the

By an old feudal law, the tail of all whales belonged to the Queen, as a perquisite to furnish her Majesty's wardrobe with whalebone (Brown, quoting "Blackstone's Commentaries," vol. i. p. 233, ed. 1783).

† Dr. Brown, in the paper before quoted, states that they couple from June to August, and bring forth in March or April.

oppressor of us! Of a certainty, never before did Chrysomela cause such a commotion in this country or any other, let scholars argue as they may about the golden apples of Paris or of the Hesperides: of equal certainty is it, that no beetle ever before attained such notoriety. Its biography has been faithfully chronicled to the uttermost point; its goings and comings have been telegraphed and advertised; a Fellow of the Linnean Society has been sent by the Government to certify its arrival at Liverpool; it has been photographed, lithographed, drawn on wood, and otherwise depicted, in its natural size, and magnified up to the dimensions of an ordinary cat; it has been modelled in wax and other materials; it has had books, pamphlets, and newspaper notices written about it ad nauseam; it has inspired leading articles in the most powerful newspapers; it has been the subject of a large cartoon in Punch; it has occupied the serious attention of the Privy Council, and formed a bone of contention for savans and demi-savans; and, finally, has attained the dignity of an Act of Parliament, hurriedly pushed through the House of Lords, for its special behoof.

Entomologists, as a natural consequence of all this popular excitement, are just now considering themselves less than usually unimportant; and it would seem an excellent opportunity for the patrons of art and science who delight in South Kensington to obtain the foundation of some Government office, after the fashion of the American State Entomologists (only, of course, on a more lucrative scale, in inverse ratio to the work), to which one of their protégés could be duly appointed. The ordinary duties could, without much difficulty, be discharged after a careful study of Curtis's "Farm Insects" and one or two other works of a like nature; and the country would then be at rest, should an invasion by a foreign foe like that now imminent, ever again

Occur.

dreaded Colorado Beetle.* therefore, may be of use:

There can, however, be no doubt that, earnest and energetic steps should be taken at the present unprecedented juncture, when the insect has succeeded in effecting a lodgment in two inland parts of Germany (though how that lodgment was effected we have no particle of evidence), and specimens have, after many false alarms, been proved to have at last arrived on the British shores; and it is with the idea of furthering a knowledge of the outward appearance of the dreaded beetle that the present article is penned. The majority of our readers have probably already formed a sufficient idea of it from other sources; but it is astonishing to what an extent fear will paralyze the faculties of unscientific observers, causing them in the present instance to think such vastly different insects as the common Tigerbeetle (Cicindela campestris), the Cockchafer (Melolontha vulgaris), the common banded burying-beetle (Necrophorus vespillo), the larvae and pupa of ladybirds (Coccinella septempunctata), &c., to be the

The following [figures,

Fig. 158. Various stages, A, B, C, D, and E, in the development of the Colorado Potato-beetle, Doryphora decemlineata (Say).

A is the perfect beetle, a male (in which the legs and prehensile tarsi are more developed than in the female), magnified about twice the natural size; B is the same insect seen sideways, and of the natural size; C is the full-grown larva (in shape resembling somewhat our common "Bloody-nose Beetle" (Timarcha tenebricosa); D is the pupa, and E a batch of the yellow eggs. The beetle, when alive, is of a yellowish cream-colour (lighter when quite fresh), with five longitudinal black stripes on each wing-case, and some dark spots and markings, more or less confluent, on the thorax. The antennæ are black, with the basal joints more or less orange, and the legs are orange, with black knees and tarsi; the ample wings, seen when the insect flies, are, as in our common seaside dark purple species, Chrysomela hæmoptera, rosy-red, especially along the nervures and upper portion. The colours of the beetle become much darker after death, and are entirely altered by immersion in spirits or benzine; and it is usually specimens so treated that are in the hands of English entomologists. It should also be observed that, according to Riley, the ground-colour varies considerably in specimens from different parts, from deep gamboge-yellow to almost pure white. The beetle appears also to vary much in size, marks of thorax, elytra, and legs, &c., according to the same authority. The larva may be described as Venetian-red, inclining to cream-colour, or rosy-red, slightly yellowish behind the head, which, with the back of the thoracic plate, the legs, two rows of conspicuous spots on the sides, and some other minute black dots, are black.

*Instances of all these mistakes have come under the writer's personal notice.

It does not always assume the position drawn, but lengthens itself out in the act of feeding.

The best and most elaborate account of the beetle is contained in a little work called "Potato Pests," published by the well-known Orange Judd Company, of New York, and written by our countryman Mr. C. V. Riley, the State entomologist of Missouri, to whose various reports all English writers on the subject are indebted. As this is not accessible to all, it may be mentioned that there is a good and illustrated account by Mr. H. W. Bates, in vol. xi. (second series) of the "Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England," 1875, pp. 361--375.

Space will not permit an extended notice in these columns; but the following may be given as a sketch of the progress of the beetle since its discovery. It was known to occur on a sand-bur or wild potato (Solanum rostratum) in the Rocky Mountains since 1820, or thereabouts. As the cultivated potato extended westwards, it acquired a preference for that plant, and spread eastward, until, in 1859, it was in Nebraska, in 1861 in Iowa, in 1864 and 1865 in Illinois, on at least five different points, in 1866 in Wisconsin, in 1868 in the centre of Indiana, and so on further eastward to the Atlantic, until it touched the seaboard at many different places in 1874, having travelled at an average annual rate of about eightyeight miles. Having reached New York, it swarmed and extended north and south along the coast, and finally reached Canada, having spread over an area of nearly 1,500,000 square miles,-considerably more than one-third the area of the United States, and now occupying more or less completely thirty-four states and territories, besides a large portion of Canada.

Its western barrier appears to be the Rocky Mountains, and the Atlantic would, of course, prove an effectual limit to the east were it not for ships in the harbours, on which it has swarmed since 1874 to an incredible extent, even floating on the sea in vast numbers far from the shore. The wonder, therefore, is, not so much that the insect should succeed in reaching us on board ship, but that it should not long before this have done so, and in great numbers. There is no need for any material connected with the potato or its cultivation to be shipped in order to afford a cover for the beetle, which is ubiquitous on the American side, and can as easily be brought over en masse in a hat-box or secreted in unused clothing, as in a barrel of potato-haulm.

But whether, having arrived, it can succeed in becoming acclimatized in England, is another matter, upon which opinions are divided; though there would seem great danger of its effecting a lodgment in Southern Europe. To the writer, it seems that our much damper and colder climate, not affording opportunities for the rapid succession of broods which the insect develops in America, must materially militate against its obtaining a permanent hold; and the collateral arguments that no American beetle has

ever established itself in England, and that we possess no near ally of this particular one (the original home of whose special generic group appears to be almost tropical, in Central America), cannot fail to have some weight in the matter.

But the powers of exceptional vitality and extension of range possessed by the Colorado beetle are so great, that it would, even if all these objections were granted, be the height of folly to neglect all possible precautions against its encroachment; and of these the first is a dissemination of a knowledge of the foe. This has already been done to a large extent, both by the Government (according to its lights) and by private enterprise; and on this point it is somewhat amusing to find a paper like the Standard suggesting the publication and dispersal of drawings of the insect as a likely means of imparting knowledge, long after that course had been very extensively adopted. There are penal clauses in the Destructive Insects Bill above referred to against harbouring the beetle, or selling it, or offering it for sale alive, which seem to suspect its systematic introduction by naturalists, and with that idea would also seem opposed to the most certain method of obtaining accurate knowledge of the insect. It can scarcely be believed that entomologists would be so culpably careless as to permit the escape of living specimens ; and it is to be hoped that no coleopterist will import the "Bogus potato-bug," Doryphora juncta, not included in the Act, but specifically very close to the Colorado beetle, for the purpose of puzzling the Government officials charged with the levying of the pains and penalties warranted by it.

Should the beetle by any evil chance obtain a footing in our fields, the method employed at Mülheim, as detailed in the Cologne Gazette, will prove most effective for its destruction: this, briefly, consists of isolation of the infested locality by ditches, and covering its surface with sawdust which is saturated with benzoyl, benzoyl also being poured into the ditches. After burning the surface, it is ploughed in close ridges, again saturated, and again burnt. When once the beetle has fairly settled itself over too large an area for such vigorous treatment, the best course appears to be, to take especial and energetic pains in systematically hunting for it in spring, before the parents have deposited their eggs. As a destructive dressing, the Americans find that a solution of Paris green in water, sprinkled by a machine over the plants, is the most effectual.

Of the various natural enemies to the beetle (chiefly other insects) occurring in America, it would be practically useless to speak, as they cannot well be found here, though, doubtless, some of our own predaceous and parasitic species (and also our insectivorous birds) would have something to say to the invader. The parasitic mite which has figured in various London papers (roughly copied from Riley's drawing of Uropoda americana), has, however, a

common European representative, U. vegetans, of similar habits, though it is not easy to see how these could materially affect the beetle.

In concluding these notes, it may not be out of place to observe that the generic name under which the beetle is usually mentioned is scarcely correct. Doryphora is based upon a character not possessed by the Colorado beetle, viz., a spear-point on the mesosternum (whence the American name spearman," " and also the allusion conveyed by the spear in Punch's cartoon, which, bad as it is, is not so gross a caricature as others not intended to be so); Leptinotarsa is founded upon an unstable groove in the tibiæ; Polygramma has only coloration to recommend it, and no structural points; Myocoryna is preoccupied by Dejean in the same family; and Riley proposes a new name, Thlibocoryna, for the group, which is closely allied to Doryphora in the shape of its palpi. No English beetle belongs to it, or is in any way really like it; our only large striped Chrysomela is the refulgent copper and green C. cerealis, found on wild thyme on Snowdon.

THE FERTILIZATION OF LESCHENAULTIA FORMOSA.

THE

HE specific name of this plant was given by Robert Brown. It is a native of Australia. It is a small woody shrub, with linear, sub-coriaceous leaves, about half an inch long. Flowers solitary, terminal; corolla monopetalous, with a deep scarlet bilabiate limb; the upper lip divided into three rather irregular, slightly reflexed divisions; the lower almost boat-shaped, and partially surrounding the indusiate stigma. It is a very pretty, and certainly most interesting plant, and one admired by all plant-lovers. The genus belongs to the family Goodeniacea: a family of peculiar and interesting structure. A great deal of interest resides in the indusium which sheaths the stigma. The same structure is developed in the genus Brunonia, and in the Styleworts. The indusium here referred to, and which is shown in fig. 160, a, is a prolongation of the disk, that is, adnate to the style; and it is to find out the object of this indusium that we here treat upon it.

Looking, then, at the front of the lower lip of the flower, we see the indusium (fig. 159, a; more enlarged fig. 160, a), which is two-lipped; when the flower is expanded, that upper lip is closed tight down; the lower lip is no doubt adnate to the stigma, or, according to some, the true stigma is outside the indusium entirely; but, whether the latter is correct or not, it is sufficient for our purpose to say that the lower portion is tufted with hairs, and between the hairs and the closed upper lip is the true stigmatic surface. When in this state, the whole affair resembles the mouth with the lips closed.

Now, suppose we open the upper lip with a pin,

160

a

Fig. 159. Leschenaultia formosa, expanded flower. Fig. 160, calyx and pistil, showing the indusiate stigma, a, magnified. Fig. 161, stamens and pistil in a bud state, showing the pollen being discharged from the anthers into the indusium (mag.).

what satisfaction! we find the pollen being discharged from the anthers into the indusium (fig. 161), just as coals are discharged into the holds of a ship! How beautiful! It would be well to state here that the flowers in a bud state are nearly erect, thus facilitating the discharge of the pollen. After the indusium thus receives the pollen, it quickly closes, and covers the pollen, while the growth of the style is very rapid.

It is now time to ask Nature this question: why is the pollen thus stored up? First, that it should not be lost, since the anthers discharge their pollen before the stigma is ready to receive it. And, secondly, to ensure a most peculiar and beautiful method of cross-fertilization. And we must bear in mind, that although the pollen is in such close contiguity with the stigma, it cannot reach it, nor can the ovules be fertilized without some foreign agency. Suppose, then, a small insect to alight upon the lower lip of the corolla, and in search of nectar down the tube (although we have never found any nectar, but we are pleased to say that Mr. Darwin's observations differ in this respect, as he states that the flowers contain a copious supply of nectar), the under part of the insect would easily push back the indusium, thus exposing the pollen to the insect, and to which the