stroys all kinds of vegetables, melons, &c., even crawling up into peach and fig trees to devour the fruit. The insects are extremely voracious and should they ever occur in large numbers, would prove very destructive, not only in market gardens, bat to vegetation generally. Even the little fellows in my breeding cage showed good signs of having sharp jaws and sharper appetites, for in the first few days of their existence they made way with a large turf of rank grass, more than a foot square. On account of their rudimentary wings these insects are unable to fly, their only modes of locomotion being crawling and jumping, which is at best a clumsy performance, hence they are easily destroyed when troublesome, by sweeping into nets or by simply crushing them on the ground with the foot, first jarring them down from the plants, on which they may be found feeding. CHARLES R. DODGE.

GLEANINGS IN FOREIGN FIELDS.

The Venemous Spider of New Zealand.-The following narrative of the effects of the bite of the "kapito," a native spider of New Zealand, is given by Mr. Meek of Waimera, in Science Gossip for February:

It was on the morning of the 24th ultimo, at three o'clock, my son (a man of thirty-one years of age) was awakened from his sleep by the bite of one of those poisonous insects, and came into our bedroom about an hour afterwards, and exclaimed to his mother and myself, "I am bitten by one of those spiders that the natives have so often spoken to me about, and am full of pain. See, here it is in the bottom of the candlestick." I looked at the insect, whose body was about the size of an ordinary pea, and in color nearly approaching to black. His mother on looking at his back, saw the puncture the spider had made, and immediately commenced sucking the wound. I proceeded to the hotel, and obtained the services of Dr. Mohnbeer, when on my return with him to my house, my son was suffering the most excruciating pain in the groin, the virus apparently working its way in that direction. After an application of ammonia by the doctor, the pain shifted from the groin and worked its way up the spine, affecting the arms and chest during the remainder of the day and lasting till the following morning, my son moaning with pain the whole time.

Tuesday the pain became intense, the virus, working its way into his legs, causing the veins to swell very much. We applied turnip poultice to the wound, and when taken off, a quantity of black fluid came from the sore. During the afternoon the pain in the legs and big toes still continued. Dr. Mohnbeer prescribed a liniment, which after rubbing well into the legs, caused a black, inky colored fluid to emit itself through the pores of the skin in large drops, from which my son began to improve, and has continued improving ever since, but suffers much from weakness. From the time he was bitten on the Monday till the Friday following he lost twelve pounds in flesh. I forgot to state that when he first was bitten, I gave him small doses of brandy at intervals during the first two days, which seemed to have the effect of greatly relieving the pain. I am informed by Te Hemera, native chief here, and also by other natives, that many fatal cases among their ranks have taken place by the bite of the "kapito;" they also believe the sufferer is sure to die if they cannot find the spider; but on the contrary, if they find it and burn it in the fire, the patient gets well in three days. If they cannot find the insect, they set fire to the house and burn building, effects and everything else. In this case the spider was found and preserved in spirits.

Sense of Hearing in Birds and Insects.-Mr. G. J. Romaines in a recent number of Nature presents the following suggestions on this subject:

I do not know whether ornithologists are acquainted with the peculiar manner in which curlews frequently obtain their food on sandy flats which have been left bare by the tide. The birds force their long bills into the wet sand as far as the nostrils, and then again withdraw it, leaving a small hole, which, when probed, is found to be only just large enough to have taken in the bill. The animal, therefore, can only have made a single prolonged push without adding any lateral or exploring movements of the bill, as birds which feed in mud may be observed to do Now it cannot be supposed that curlews adopt this mode of feeding without obtaining from it some degree of profit. Neither can it be supposed that they make their thrusts into the sand at random; for, their bills being so pointed and slender, the birds would usually require to make a vast number of ineffectual thrusts before they happened to hit upon a worm or other edible object. The question therefore is,

how do the birds know the precise spots where their victims lie buried in the sand? That this knowedge is not derived by sight I am quite sure, for I have repeatedly observed innumerable curlew marks of the kind described occurring on tracts of sand which, in virtue of their high level, presented a perfectly smooth and uniform surface. I can therefore only suppose that the birds are guided in their probings by their sense of hearing. Doubtless it is difficult to believe that this sense is so delicate and precise as to enable the curlew to perceive so exceedingly slight a sound as that which must be caused by the movement, say of a small worm at a distance of ten or twelve inches from the surface of the sand, and at the same time to localise the exact spot beneath the surface from which so slight a sound proceeds. I cannot see, however, that any other explanation is open, and perhaps the one now offered may not seem so incredible if we remember the case of the thrush. No one, I think, can observe this bird feeding and doubt that it finds its worms and grubs almost exclusively by the sense of hearing. And if the distance which it runs between successive pauses for listening represents—as we cannot but suppose it must-the diameter of the circle within which this bird is able to hear the movements of a worm, I think that the hypothesis I have just advanced with regard to the curlew ceases to be improbable.

It seems worth while to add a few words with respect to the sense of hearing in insects. So far as I am aware, the occurence of such a sense in this class had never been actually proved, although on a priori grounds there can scarcely be any doubt concerning the fact of some insects being able to hear; seeing that in so many species stridulation and other sounds are made during the season of courtship. In the case of moths, however, I believe that sounds are never emitted-except of course the death's-head. It therefore becomes interesting to observe that an auditory sense is certainly present in these insects. Several kinds of moths have the habit of gently, though very rapidly, vibrating their wings, while they themselves are at rest on a flower or other surface. If, while this vibrating movement of the wings is going on, the observer makes a sudden shrill note with a violin or fife, &c., the vibrating movement immediately ceases, and sometimes the whole body of the insect gives a sudden start. These marked indications of hearing I found invariably to follow a note with a high pitch, but not a note with a low one.

Friendly Spiders.-Spiders are unamiable, quarrelsome, spiteful creatures, even to their own kin,-such is the character these Arachnids bear, though I do not believe they always deserve it. Upon the window of an out-house last summer, I noticed there were spread the webs of several spiders, two being in close contiguity. A fly bounced into one of these two webs, and his size gave the occupant trouble. Hearing the buzzing (or feeling the vibrations of the threads, for it has been conjectured by several naturalists that spiders are deaf,) the spider in the adjacent web entered and gave his aid, and the two spiders sucked the juice of the fly very amicably. I have seen, however, as I must confess, under other circnmstances, when one spider has approached another's prey, that the owner has either fled or "rushed to the charge" and fought, or frightened away the intruder.-J.R.S.C.

Recent Arrivals at Zoological Garden, Philadelphia.-1 red shouldered hawk, (Buteo lineatus;) 1 Virginia deer, (Cervus virginianus ;) I great horned owl, (Bubo virginianus ;) 1 red-tailed hawk, (B. borealis) 1 Pseudemys concinna; 3 oppossums, (Didelphys virginiamus ;) 6 white rats and young, (Mus rattus ;) 1 golden eagle, (Aquila chrysaetus ;) 4 English rabbits, (Lepus cuniculus) 1 king dove, ( Turtur risorius;) I red fox, (Vulpes fulvus;) 1 quail, (Ortyx virginianus ;) I sparrow hawk, (Falco sparverius;) 3 Canadian lynxes, (Lynx Canadensis;) 3 Menobranches maculus; and I turkey buzzard, (Cathartes aura.)-ARTHUR E. BROWN.

Trox Scaber.-Mr. Samuel Auxer, of Lancaster City, Pa., a close student and a vigilant collector in entomology, for more than twenty years; took over fifteen hundred specimens of Trox scaber, Linn, within a space of four feet long and ten inches wide, at one "take," in the month of October last. Although this species is said to occur in every quarter of the globe, and in our own fauna from Canada to Texas, yet, singular to say, Mr. A. with all his observation, had not been fortunate enough to find a single specimen of this species before those alluded to above. These insects had all gathered along the Northern and Eastern margin (inside) of a "cold frame," in his gar den. Has any other entomologists had a similar experience? We have never taken more than one or two specimens of this species in thirty years.-S. S. R.

Field and Forest

A MONTHLY JOURNAL

DEVOTED TO THE NATURAL SCIENCES.

VOL. II.-APRIL, 1877.—No. 10.

On Plant Galls.

(Translated by Wm. H. Seaman.)

The following abstract of an article on the above subject, by M. W. Beyerinck, in the January number of the Botanische Zeitung, may assist in the study of these objects.

In 1674 Marcello Malpighi of the London Royal Society, published his work "De Anatome Plantarum," containing a more original and valuable treatise on galls than any that has since appeared. Reaumur alone beside has treated of galls in general "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire des insects, Ed. Paris, 1737, Mem. XII.” Numerous contributions to our knowledge have been made by Lacaze Duthiers, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Botamque, 1853, Dr. A. W. F. Thomas in Giebels Zeitschrift, 1869, and Botanische Zeitung, 1872; while their biology has been discussed by the entomologists, Coquebert, Olivier, Frisch, de Geer, Swammerdam, Roesel, Bremi, Giraud, Perris, Frauenfeld, G. Mayr and others. Hammerschmidt "Oesterreichische Zeitschrift fur Landewirth, &c., 1838. Frauenfeld, Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Acad. der wissenchaften zu Wien, 1855, and Dr. C. Czech, "Arrangement of Plant Galls" in programme of the Realschule, Dusseldorf, 1858, according to their inhabitants, are the most important attempts at classification of these objects.

As complete an examination of the literature of the subject as pos