cochineal in ether, treating the residue with boiling alcohol, allowing it to cool, and treating the deposit with pure alcohol; by then adding its own volume of sulphuric ether a deposit of carminium is formed. Carminium is uncrystallisable and of a beautiful red colour; it fuses at 104°. It is soluble in water, but

and found their colour as rich as that from those just obtained.

Adulteration is effected by mixing the dried up skins of old, used insects with the genuine article, also by artificially representing them in paste, but they can generally be easily detected.

Another form of adulteration is sometimes practised, and consists in mixing what is known in commerce as "East India Cochineal," and which is a very inferior article with the real.

Fig. 11.-Coccus cacti (male). Fig. 12.-Coccus cacti (female).

and is employed chiefly in woollen goods; the colour is fixed by a mordant of alumina and oxide of tin, and the colour is intensified by super-tartrate of potash. Mixed with white it forms rouge; and the colours, carmine and lake are made from it.

To make a single pound of cochineal it is estimated that no fewer than seventy thousand insects are required. It was once considered an extremely precious article, fetching sometimes as much as 36s. and 39s. per lb., but the price is now 45. Previous to 1845 there existed a duty on cochineal, but it is now abolished. It does not lose its properties as a dye by prolonged keeping, if in a dry place. Hellot made some experiments on dried Cochineal which had been kept more than one hundred years,

THE ROMAUNT OF BEDEGAR.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

By the REV. H. FRIEND, F.L.S.

[Continued from p. 11.]

HAT you may see first of all how much atten

THAT

tion was formerly paid to my ancestors, will tell you what one of the old writers on medicine has to say about me. It is true that his language is somewhat dry and uninteresting to many, but, as we all feel a special pride in hearing what people say about us, I may be forgiven if I am somewhat vain of the learned names by which my family has been (distinguished. This writer, then, in a brief chapter on Spina alba, says it is also known as "Akantha leuke, Wood Cyanara (a name which has since been applied to a relative of the thistle family, and is specially associated with the artichoke), Donacitis, Venus' Sceptre (so I understand the name Erysi sceptrum, which the names Frawen Distel and Mary's Thistle confirm), White Thistle, Royal Thistle, Robber Thistle. In Hebrew it may be called Atad laban, that is, Spina alba. The German name is White Way-Thistle. This is what the Arabs call Bedeguar; it is also known as the Herb of the House or House-wort,"I suppose because of the remarkable qualities attributed to certain parts of the plant when employed as a medicine. It should be observed that in the foregoing account of my ancestors the maternal side is especially referred to, since spina and acanthus are both feminine. However, in later times, when people began to think more of the father than of the mother, one Galen adopted the masculine gender for this name, and, when using it as one word, converted it into Leucacanthon. Hence it is that we find this term in very frequent use (not without a good deal of confusion) among more recent authorities on plants. I wish to impress upon my readers at this point the important fact that, so far as we have pursued my family history, every name which my ancestors received-whether Bedegar in Arabic, Acanthus in Greek, Spina in Latin, or Atad in Hebrew, or Distel in German-had reference to the thorny or prickly nature of the original plant. To make this matter quite certain I have fortunately been able to

come upon the portrait of one of my grandparents, which was published about three hundred and fifty years ago, or in the early half of the sixteenth century (A.D. 1543) in a valuable old work in Latin. This is a picture of a thistle, with a full and detailed description of its peculiarities. Among other things there stated, I find that my ancestors were fond of hilly and well-wooded regions, bore white leaves, which were narrower and paler than those of the chameleon, with not a few hairs and prickles. The stem grew to a height of two cubits and more, and the flowers were purple. It is further added that the seeds of this plant (which, it must be remembered, grew amidst a head of cottony hairs or pappus like the seeds of other thistles), were chiefly employed in medicine. Here lies the secret of future mischief and difficulty. It was entirely due to this fact that, after the period we have now reached, a great deal of uncertainty began to be realised when the original Bedegar was asked for. Meanwhile, the name had been spreading, along with the article, far and wide, until alike, in France and England, as well as in Germany, Spain, and other lands, the famous medicine was to be found. I find in a list of herbs which was written six hundred years ago (before books began to be printed) that our name occupies an honourable position. It may interest the reader if I reproduce this early reference. Let it be remembered that medicines were spoken of formerly, as they still are in the East, as hot and cold. Some herbs are mild, or between hot and cold; and in this list of mild plant medicines, three only are named-Mirtus, or Sweet Gale, Arnoglosa, or the Plantain, and Bedegar. The way in which the name is spelt, however, has baffled some investigators, although it may be easily explained. The entry is as follows:

"Bedegrage.—Spina alba, Wit-thorn."

Wit-thorn of course is the same as White Thorn, and simply translates Spina alba; which in its turn is a correct equivalent of Bedegar. When this Arabic name became familiar to the Latin writers, they treated it as a Latin word, and declined it as the teacher says, so that sometimes it appeared as Bedegaris; and so it came in time to be written Bedegrage by persons who wrote words according to their sound, without knowing their meaning or history. This curious mode of spelling opened the way for still greater confusion, which was increased by the custom of retaining the Arabic word "Al” (as in algebra, alchemy, alkanet) before names borrowed from that language. Thus I find our family name written in the fifteenth century Albederagi! Who would have thought that Bedegar could be so changed? Yet if we drop the "Al" we shall find the remaining portion (Bederagi) is exactly the same as Bedegrage, with just one letter omitted. This slight change, however, has thrown many a student off his guard, and even in the work

which contains the name Albederagi I find a little later on another description of the same thing under the accurately-written name of Bedegar. This confusion of names is, by the way, only a small portion of the confusion which has been introduced in connection with the article itself, as we shall presently see. Let us, however, for a moment follow the names which we used in English and French to set forth the meaning of Spina alba or Bedegar to their final resting-place. In France the early translation of the name was Espine blanche, the latter word meaning simply "white"; but when Acantha leuca and Leucacanthon, Spina alba and Alba spina came to be confused, the French adopted the term Aubespine, as well as Espine blanche, and the English spoke of the Albespyne, or White thorn, meaning no longer. the original White-thistle, but the Hawthorn or Maybush! All this is exceedingly curious, and shows what difficulties the genealogist has to encounter and overcome in tracing out the real history of a plant from modern, back to the earliest times.

Having in the foregoing study of my family history shown to what changes the name Bedegar has been liable, and to what different ideas its translation into other tongues eventually gave rise, it is now necessary that I should tell you of the other change that was proceeding at the same time. It has been shown that the seeds with their woolly appendage or cottony pappus (the pappus is simply the calyx, adapted to form a balloon for conveying the seed to a distance), were the most valuable part of the plant for medicinal purposes, and it is easy to suppose that when these seeds could not be procured a substitute with a similar nature and appearance would be introduced, and called by the name which the genuine article bore. I would not say that the herbalists of the middle ages wilfully deceived people in this way, though, from what I have read and heard about the mandrake and other curious plants, I am sure they were often capable of doing very mean things; but of this I am certain, that, somewhere about the fifteenth century, the genuine article began to give way to a spurious one, and Bedegar became the name of something totally different from the white thistle of early times. You may judge of the surprise with which, after seeing the portrait of my early ancestor already referred to, I one day came across another portrait of Bedegar which had no family resemblance to the former whatever. It happened in this way. Many ages ago, there lived (not at the same time however), two very famous men named Theophrastus and Dioscorides, who wrote some learned books on natural history. Some centuries after, when printing was first employed for the multiplication of books, the writings of these men were presented to the public in both the Greek and the Latin languages. Other students of nature, inspired by these valuable but antiquated works, undertook to follow up the investigations already

commenced, and when they found out any new fact which either threw light upon the writings of the early naturalists, or added something to that meagre stock of information, they used their facts as comments on, or explanations of, the writings of Theophrastus and Dioscorides. In one edition of their works we duly find the portrait of Bedegar as a white thistle; but in another this name stands also over a sprig of oak, bearing a woolly gall! The commentator, it is true, tells us, when speaking of Spina alba that it is called Bedeguard (this is the way in which he spells it), but he is apparently quite unable to see how the name has been transferred from one medicinal article to another. Here, then, we have, in a book published in 1644, the name Bedegar applied to a gall on the oak, and at the same time to a plant called Spina alba. The gall is usurping the place of the seeds of thistle, and appropriating its name. An old writer speaks of the gall as a spongy growth or excrescence on the oak. Since this growth is somewhat rare, however, in many places on the oak, but very common on the rose, it soon became the custom to speak of the rosegall as Bedegar; and so thoroughly did the name attach itself to this article in a short time that all the books from the sixteenth century forward which treat of medicines and herbs apply the term Bedegar to the gall on the rose. I have only met with one exception to this rule. The famous old herbalist, Gerarde, earnestly protested, but in vain, against this unjustifiable innovation. In his curious old work, originally published towards the end of the sixteenth century (1595), and brought out a little later in a revised and emended form, he thus speaks on this subject: "The spongie balls which are found upon the branches (of the wild rose or Eglantine), are most aptly and properly called Spongiola sylvestris Rosa, or the little sponges of the wild rose. The shops mistake it by the name of Bedeguar; for Bedeguar among the Arabians is a kind of thistle, which is called in Greeke Akantha leuke, that is to say Spina alba, or the white thistle, not the white-thorn, though the word does import so much." I certainly feel deeply indebted to this faithful champion of our cause for so clearly presenting our family claims and relationships; but as I have said, his protest was in vain; for, from that day to this, the "spongie balls" have still borne the name of Bedegar. As Gerarde gives a figure of the Eglantine bearing a gall (though he will not call it Bedegar), I have now been able to examine three portraits of my ancestors, and I cannot but feel amazed at the change which has taken place. From a thistle to a rose; from Arabia to Great Britain; from a cottony seed to a "spongie ball"! Fact is indeed still stranger than fiction.

It will perhaps be expected that I should explain what these spongy balls are, which, in modern medicine, bear my ancient name. I turn to the

various works on medical botany which it has been necessary for me to procure in order to write this family history, and I find that all the most reliable authorities tell the same story-the galls are produced by insects. True, one old writer says that Bedegar is the name given to certain excrescences which grow spontaneously on roses; as though there were no external cause, or they were quite independently produced. Recent researches, however, shew that these growths do not come by chance, but are the regular outcome of certain well-known causes. Thus we read in one recent work that "On various species of the rose, perhaps most frequently on the sweet-briar (R. rubiginosa, L.) or eglantine, is found a remarkable gall, called the sweet-briar sponge (Bedeguar, or Fungus rosarum). Pliny terms it in one place a little ball in another a sponge. It is produced by the puncture of several insect species; viz., Cynips rosa, &c. The bedeguar is usually rounded, but of variable size, sometimes being an inch, or an inch and a half or more in diameter. Externally it looks shaggy, or like a ball of moss, being covered with moss-like, branching fibres, which are at first green, but afterwards become purple. The nucleus is composed principally of cellular tissue with woody fibre; and where the fibres are attached bundles of spiral vessels are observed. Internally, there are numerous cells, in each of which is the larva of an insect (usually called a maggot); and if opened about August or September maggots (or larvæ) are generally found within. It is inodorous, or nearly so; its taste is slightly astringent, and it colours the saliva brownish. Dried and powdered it was formerly given in doses of from ten to forty grains. More recently it has been recommended as a remedy against toothache. Pliny says the ashes mixed with honey were used as a liniment for baldness. In another place he speaks of the gall being mixed with bear's grease for the same purpose." I have purposely omitted from the foregoing, certain medical and scientific terms, in order that the extract might be more intelligible to my readers; and must request them to be content with this paragraph, as a sample of the whole matter to be found in other medical works.

I have thus briefly, but as clearly as I was able, traced my family history from the earliest to the most modern times; and now in a few words, in order that the whole matter may be perfectly understood by the reader, I will give a summary of the result. The name Bedegar is of Semitic origin, and comes from a word Dakar meaning "to stab." From the verb we get the noun Deker "the stabber" (1 Kings iv. 9), then by adding Ben we obtain Ben-deker, Bed-deker or Bidekar (2 Kings ix. 25), meaning "the son of the stabber," or little stabber." This name was in the course of time applied to a spinous plant, and hence a thistle was

"the

known by the Arabs as Bedegar. This thistle, or certain portions of it, entered the ancient pharmacopæia or medicine list, then was carried to Greece, Italy, Germany and England where the name was still retained, along with its equivalent in the languages of those lands, as Akantha, Spina, Distel or Thistle. In course of time, however, the term was appropriated (about the fifteenth or sixteenth century) to another article, viz, an insect gall, and thus in the end the spongy balls on the wild rose came to be regularly known under the Arabic name of Bedegar, or the little stabber.

Idle, Bradford.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BRITISH DIPTERA.

IT

By E. BRUNEtti.

1. INTRODUCTION.

T will be my endeavour in the following papers to give an outline of the British Diptera: Twenty years ago, but little was known respecting this order, but the labours of Messrs. Verrall, Meade, Dale (and, in a lesser degree, other entomologists), have resulted in rich collections of these insects, and with the material at present available, we may venture to speak with some approach to accuracy of the species of Diptera indigenous to the British Islands.

Mr. Verrall's recently-published list (1888) forms a splendid foundation for our researches, and the student, I trust, will find the following remarks of assistance to him during his preliminary investigations and first collecting excursions.

On the Continent the Diptera are tolerably well known and the fact of our knowledge of the British species being so unsatisfactory should be a greater incentive to the true entomologist, as the order offers far more opportunities of rendering real service to science than do either the Lepidoptera or Coleoptera.

It is true that students have few incentives to take up the study of the Diptera, as the disadvantages are so numerous; collections being few and far between, and usually the property of private individuals. The national collection of these insects is in a highly unsatisfactory state, for the very simple reason that no one has been employed to bring it anywhere near up to date; to correct the numerous and most palpable blunders in nomenclature; to fill up any of the large gaps made by the absence of whole genera, as well as numbers of the most common species; or to replace by fresh specimens the old damaged and dirty ones that do duty as the National British Collection.

Although collections available for reference, and books are so scarce, there are now fortunately several workers at this group who are fairly well acquainted with the order, and who, as a rule, are

very ready, leisure permitting, to assist beginners by naming their captures; I myself being most happy to help collectors in this manner, provided the specimens sent for identification be in good condition.

2. COLLECTING.

Diptera, to put it shortly, may be captured in every part of the country in tolerable abundance, in almost every conceivable nature of habitat, disappearing only during the very coldest weeks, and even in mid-winter certain species (generally Nematocera) may be obtained by those who know where to look for them.

The ordinary gauze butterfly net is most useful for capturing them, and the sweeping net for those inhabiting the borders of streams, dry ditches, long grass, banks and other similar habitats.

As most flies rise, when alarmed, with great rapidity, a short quick stroke is necessary to capture them, a second opportunity rarely being afforded. It has been computed that certain species rise with a velocity of twelve feet a second.

As many groups and certain genera have a special manner of their own of taking flight, and of behaving when on the wing, it is of invaluable assistance when the collector is able to recognise at sight the family to which the intended capture belongs.

In sweeping, much discretion and experience is necessary, as the net rapidly fills with twigs, leaves, larvæ, beetles and spiders, these latter being the bugbear of the collector whilst sweeping, as they spin up the contents of the net (which I transfer bodily into large chip boxes, to be sorted out at home) into a tangled, unrecognisable mass, besides devouring a large proportion of the Diptera captured.

Larger species have to be captured singly and transferred to glass-top boxes, into each of which the collector with a little manipulation and experience should be able to place a dozen; care being taken to keep the carnivorous species separate (as Empis, Leptis, &c.) or one finds on reaching home, perhaps, every speciinen more or less eaten.

Species in which the legs are exceptionally brittle and break off easily, should be given separate boxes, if possible (Anthomyida, Tipulida, Dolichopida, &c.), or at most only two or three specimens placed in each box.

Whenever the opportunity occurs, take a long series of a species, as by this means varieties may bc obtained and the limits of specific variation fixed.

If a note-book of captures is kept, it will be found of invaluable assistance during subsequent seasons, and this plan should be adopted by all who desire doing anything of value towards completing our knowledge of the order.

3. PRESERVING.

Diptera should invariably be brought home alive, and killed by the fumes of burning sulphur. I am