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THE ANNALS
AND
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY,
INCLUDING
ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, ann GEOLOGY.
(BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE ‘ANNALS’ COMBINED WITH LOUDON AND CHARLESWORTH’S ‘ MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY,’)
CONDUCTED BY
ALBERT C. L. G. GUNTHER, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., F.B.S., WILLIAM S. DALLAS, F.LS., WILLIAM CARRUTHERS, F.R.S., F.LS., F.G.S.,
AND
WILLIAM FRANCIS, Ph.D., F.L.S.
eee »f
VOL. XV.—FIFTH SERIE:
LONDON: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY TAYLOR AND FRANCIS.
SOLD BY LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO.; KENT AND CO.,; WHITT AKER AND CO.: BAILLIERE, PARIS: MACLACHLAN AND STEWART, EDINBURGH :
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1885.
“ Omnes res create sunt divine sapientiz et potentiz testes, divitie felicitatis humans :—ex harum usu Jonitas Creatoris; ex pulchritudine sapientia Domini; ex ceconomid in conservatione, proportione, renovatione, potentia majestatis elucet. Earum itaque indagatio ab hominibus sibi relictis semper estimata ; a veré eruditis et sapientibus semper exculta; malé doctis et barbaris semper inimica fuit.”—Linna&us.
“Quel que soit le principe de la vie animale, il ne faut qu’ouvrir les yeux pour voir qu’elle est le chef-d’ceuvre de la Toute-puissance, et le but auquel se rappor- tent toutes ses opérations.’—Bruckner, Théorie du Systéme Animal, Leyden,
1767.
eeebrencis eee ee) he sylvanspowers Obey our summons; from their deepest dells The Dryads come, and throw their garlands wild And odorous branches at our feet; the Nymphs That press with nimble step the mountain-thyme And purple heath-flower come not empty-handed, But scatter round ten thousand forms minute Of velvet moss or lichen, torn from rock Or rifted oak or cavern deep: the Naiads too Quit their loved native stream, from whose smooth face They crop the lily, and each sedge and rush That drinks the rippling tide: the frozen poles, Where peril waits the bold adventurer’s tread, The burning sands of Borneo and Cayenne, All, all to us unlock their secret stores And pay their cheerful tribute.
J. Taytor, Norwich, 1818,
CONTENTS OF VOL. XV.
[FIFTH SERIES. ]
NUMBER LXXXV.
Page
I. On the Species of Mieippa, Leach, and Paramicippa, Milne- Edwards. By E. J. Mrers, F.LS., F.Z.S. (Plate I.) ..........
II. Observations on some Freshwater Sponges. By Professor PRSEPONIZ AV RUE O NIUE Vent aa, s¥a)afolssc' sue ajicheler sis s <x) s'sce 4,01 1s) 84 alorelevaiers’ ainiaye
III. Note on Spongilla fragilis, Leidy, and a new Species of Spon- guia trom Noya,Scotia. By H. J. Canrur, F.R.S, &¢......5...:
IV. On the wide Distribution of some American Freshwater SOMME YB mS cAcraucy ce) s\.sfahagste oh guOtie ashe je pi abelshsie elo yo1 «8
V. Notices of Fungi in Greek and Latin Authors. By the Rev. NNER EAM PELOM GH ON, MAG, EO LUSS. 640 cb cee 6 oc eis eraisigin e's sae
VI. Descriptions of some new Asiatic Longicornia. By Francis JP, LEAS OOD SNE DES y iq nana rho Goce menotrs 6 OCG eer nots
VII. Note respecting Butterflies confounded under the name of Delias belladonna of Fabricius. By Arruur G. Burier, F.LS., L243 5 COG)" UII tole a Oi TCR a ae Ae a ioe Rene rap a Pa
VIII. Description of anew English Amphipodous Crustacean. By the Rev. THomas R. R. Sreppine, M.A. (Plate IT.)............
New Books :—British Oribatidee. By AtBrerr D. Micwart, F.L.S., F.R.MLS., &e. Vol. 1—Antiquity of Man, as deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton during the Excavations of the East- and West-India Dock-extensions at Tilbury, North Bank
57
59
of the Thames. By Sir Ricuarp Owen, K.C.B., F.R.S., &e. 62, 64
Proceedings of the Geological Society ................000 ues 66—69
lV CONTENTS.
Jf Contributions to the Biology of Spiders, by Dr. Friedrich Dahl ; On
the Classificatory Position of Hemzaster elongatus, by Prof. P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S. &e.; Onthe Development of the Spongille, by Dr. A. Gotte ; Note on the Reproduction of the Monotre- mata, by Thomas Southwell; A Scorpion from the Silurian
age
- Formation of Sweden, by Dr. G. Lindstrém.............. 70—76
NUMBER LXXXVI.
IX. The Origin of the Fauna and Flora of New Zealand. By Went. Es W. HUurron, EiG.S. .2...- SA ee ena Re MY POR
X. Descriptions of Sponges from the Neighbourhood of Port Phillip Heads, South Australia. By H. J. Carrer, F.R.S. &c. (Plate IV.)
XI. Mode of Circulation in the Spongida. By H. J. Carrer, PRS. we. (Plate: TV. fies, 5, a-9, and'7,1a-p,)) 22... as oe a ee
XII. On a new Species of Zdotea. By Cuartes Curiron, M.A. (NewrZealand).) “(Plate2V. A.) i205 < donee Sah eee cen mee ee
XIII. On the Reproduction and Development of Lotifer vulgaris. By ir Orro i Zacnarras,, \(Plate V. 0B.) \. anak di oc See ee
XIV. Notes from the St.-Andrews Marine Laboratory (under the Fishery Board for Scotland). By Prof. M‘Inrosu, M.D., LL.D., ETS HACC 6s Sua ie ford onttiew athole ans a ateine re Rie ese CE ce aaa
148
On the Development of the Chelifers, by J. Barrois; Notices of .
Fungi in Greek and Latin Authors, by the Rev. W. Houghton, M.A., F.L.S.; On the Classification of the Moles of the Old World, by M. A. Milne-Edwards; Biological Evolution of the
Aphides of the Genus Aphis, by M. Lichtenstein ...... 152—155
NUMBER LXXXVIL.
XV. Description of a new Species of Crinoids with Articulating Spines. By GrorGE JENNINGS HINDE, Ph.D., F.G.S. (Plate VI.)
XVI. Notes on the Paleozoic Bivalved Entomostraca.—No. XIX. On some Carboniferous Species of the Ostracodous Genus Kirkbya, Jones. By T. Rupert Jones, F’.R.S., and James W. Krrxpy, Esq. (Coie U1 EP er ears erry eon, te nee iy eye Sarees 3
XVI. A List of Reptiles and Batrachians from the Province Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, sent to the Natural-History Museum by Dr, Hyon: Lhering,.. By G..As BOULENGEE... enime opis oe seen een
XVIII. Descriptions of Sponges from the Neighbourhood of Port Phillip Heads, South Australia, continued. By H. J. Carrer, F.R.S. &e.
aoe) 2 j0\ 8s 0,8 © 2.16 'p ie iw 0.) et) (000) 6:0. .6 0 (eo fee Bie) We a fe ie ef rer elie vere in ie! 6) (6) ve
157
174
191
CONTENTS. Mi
XIX. Diagnoses of new Species of Cephalopoda collected durmy the Cruise of H.MS. ‘ Challenger. —Part I. The Octopoda. By Wiuiam E. Hove, M.A. (Oxon), M.R.C.S., F.R.S.E., Naturalist fontie ae Hallenmer GC OMmmMissION 2). 0.6. ae tes ie gees os ho weenie ee
XX. Note on the Structure of the Skeleton in the Anomocladina. EEO SO UMAS IC: ERC y acerca wn da eg cdc ple cies se aks § 236
XXI. Lepidoptera collected by Mr. C. M. Woedtord in the Ellice and Gilbert Islands, By Arntuur G. Butter, F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c. . 238
/ XXII. Descriptions of two new Species of Chaicidide. By W.F. Kirsy, Zoological Department, British Museum ................ 243
XXII. Contributions towards a General History of the Marine Polyzoa. By the Rev. Toomas Hinexs, B.A., F.R.S. (Plates VIL, WVU Ere) ith ee spe Se een ae ee BPD ELS ey ee eee ae OE 244
New Books :—Manual of Geology, Theoretical and Practical. By Joun Puixres, LL.D., F. RS. In Two Parts. Part I. Physt- cal Geology and Paleontology. By Harry Govrer SEELEY, F.R.S.—On a Method to be followed in Prehistoric Studies. (Sur une Méthode a suivre dans les Etudes Préhistoriques. | By EvuGknr van OverLoop.—Annual Report and Proceedings of the Belfast NIELS SSS Field-Club for 1883-4. (‘Twenty-
Hse eas ee BEA > VOls Meaty A ranches as oe ae e's diye eee 258—265 Proceedings of the Geological Society ............. 000 eee 265—270
On a new Genus of the Family Sarcopsylide, by Wladimir Schim- kewitsch ; Completion of the History of Chaitophorus aceris, Fabricius, by M. J. Lichtenstein; Urnatella gracilis, by Prof. Leidy : Note on the Intelligence of a Cricket parasitized by a Gordius, by Dr. H. C. McCook Ge. os ee accel, 270275
NUMBER LXXXVIII.
XXIV. Further Remarks upon the Morphology of the Blastoidea. By P. Herserr CARPENTER, D.Se., Assistant Master at Eton PE Ta ae CUprRne et Beret aver es a0e,Shnias', ded oprah, sa 2 toc gues aisie s oS/ore alee eee 277
XXYV. Descriptions of Sponges from the Neighbourhood of Port Pulp Heads, South Australia, continued. By H. J. Carrer, JCEM SSO) ienap Ai Seo eee pee a 803
XAVI. Remarks on the Variations of Llapomorphus lemniscatus. ioe WOUEEN GH: (CIMCON) faces ol ts « ite oes nines elevate DOE
v1 CONTENTS,
Page XXVII. Report on the Testaceous Mollusca obtained during a Dredging-excursion in the Gulf of Suez in the Months of February and March 1869. By Roperr MacAnprew.—Republisbed, with Additions and Corrections, by ALFRED Hanps Cooxr, M.A, Curator in Zoology, Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, ami beniserPaArb, Soi. kc sas co culls side rae ne ne DE ane 322
XXVIII. Description of a new Genus of Chalcosiide allied to Himantopterus. By ArtHur G. Butter, F.L.S., F.Z.8S., &. .... 340
XXIX. Description of a new Species of the Coleopterous Genus
Mecynodera (Sagride). By CHARLES QO. WATERHOUSE.......... 342 XXX. Notices of British Fungi. By the Rev. M. J. BerKetry, iBeivhs. endiC. WBRooME, BLS. oc. ce Sémaae cane ea meeee Bae tb.
New Books :—Report upon the Crinoidea collected during the Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Challenger’ during the years 1873-76: The Stalked Crinoids. _ By P. Hrrprrr Carpenter, D.Sc., Assistant Master at Eton College. Pp. i-xii, 1-442; 69 plates. [Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Challenger.’ Zoology, part xxxii.|—Guide to the Collection of Fossil Fishes in the Department of Geology and Palontology, British Museum (Natural History).—Guide to the Galleries of Mam- malia (Mammalian, Osteological, Cetacean) in the Department of Zoology of the British Museum (Natural History) ..., 846—352
Proceedings of the Geological Society ...........0c0ceeeceee 353, 3854
On the Discovery of an Impression of an Insect in the Silurian Sand- stone of Jurques (Calvados), by M. CO. Brongniart ; The Royal Society of New South Wales; a new Insect injurious to Wihest: byiC: -V. Riley 2.3. Os.\0. beh keene one ee 359, 356
NUMBER LXXXIX.
XXXI. On some new or little-known Fossil Lycepods from the Carboniferous Formation. By Rosrerr Kinston, F.G.S. (Plate
5. ee i On eee ra ec eee Se 357 XXXII. On the Relationship of the Sponges to the Choano-
flagellata. By Franz EDHARD SCHULZE .....6.....5..;.0+5-0. 365 XXXII. New Coleoptera recently added to the British Museum.
By Caries 0; WATERHOUSE. ». ..0snt.2 avreeecan othe Seemann 377 XXXIV. Notices of Fungi collected in Zanzibar, in 1884, by Miss
R. E. Berkeley. By the Rev. M. J. BERKELEY, F.R.S........... 584
XXXV. Report on a Collection of Marine Sponges from Japan, made by Dr. J. Anderson, F.R.S., Superintendent Indian Museum, Calcutta. By H. J. Carrer, F.R.S. &c. (Plates XIL-XIV.) .... 387
XXXVI. On three new Species of Gonepteryx from India, Japan, andiSyria. By Anraun G. BurpER, FS. Ges io.) ins ccesk ooo 406
CONTENTS. vil Page
XXXVII. New Genera and Species of Fossil Cockroaches from the Older American Rocks. By Samuet H. ScuppER .......... 408
XXXVIII. Remarks upon Lepidoptera collected in the Ellice and
Giibentusiands.. By Mr."C. M. WOODFORD °. 2. pads setse ones es 414 New Books :—A Monograph of the British Phytophagous Hymeno- ptera (Tenthredo, Sirex, and Cynips, Linné). By Prrer CameERON. Vol. II.—Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science. No. IX. 1885-84, Edited by J. G. Goop- | CHIT oc koh Os BRE HOS GODS CU Ge Ene ine eee ee ane 416, 417 Proceedings of the Geological Society ............00ce eee 419, 420
Preliminary Notes on the Echinoderms of Beaufort, by Henry F. Nachtrieb; A new Freshwater Sponge from Nova Scotia, by E. Potts; An example of Samza Cecropia having a fifth Aborted Wing, by Hermann Strecker ; New Rhizopoda of the deep-water Fauna of the Lake of Geneva, by Dr. Henry Blanc; On the Nervous System of the Bothriocephalide, by M. J. Niemiee 421—427
NUMBER XC.
XXXIX. Notes from the St. Andrews Marine Laboratory (under the Fishery Board for Scotland). By Prof. M‘Ivrosu, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., &c. (Plate XVI.)
XL. Some new Infusoria from American Fresh Waters. By Dr. EMRE OCH STORMS) “CPlAte Va) «cc nears seaelec sou deceive neds 437
XLI. Notes on the Infusorial Parasites of the Tasmanian White Ant. By W. Savitie Kent, F.LS., F.Z.S., Superintendent and Inspector ad Kisheries, Tasmanians. iis .:svelbiea ia sd ucvelavinleie we ec ales 450
XLII. On a Variety of the Freshwater Sponge Meyenta fluviatilis. By H. J. Carter, F.R.S, &c.
XLIIT. New Species of Histercde, with Synonymical Notes. By GrorGE Lewis, F.L.S y
XLIV. Notes on some Fossil Plants collected by Mr. R. Dunlop,
Airdrie, from the Lanarkshire Coal-field. By Roperr Kipsron, LPASIESLY o lehcidi tap RAO Ges. ERE ROR RE LP a a 473
XLV. Description of a Species of Wild-Mulberry Silkworm, allied to Bombyz, from Chehkiang, N. China. By F. Moors, F.ZS., AVES: &e. .
New Book :—Die Pilzthiere oder Schleimpilze. Von Dr. W. Zopr,, 493
(3)
Vili CONTENTS.
Page On the Circulation of the Larvae of Ephemera, by N. Creutzburg ; On the Existence of a Nervous System in Peltogaster, a Contri- bution to the History of the Centrogonida, by M. Y. Delage ; On the Pelagic Fauna of the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland,
by MM. G. Pouchet and J. de Guerne ....... ge eneys . 494—498
MING EX. we Ake ale ac Berean ar Scars te ier setiviem Ge ae a.3 ase wraNete Site he auatare . 500
PLATES IN VOL. XV.
Priate I. Paramicippa tuberculosa. II. Cyproidia damnoniensis. Ill. Carboniferous Kirkbye. IV. South-Australian Sponges.—Circulation in the Spongida. V. Idotea festiva—Reproduction and Development of Rotifer vulgaris. VI. Hystricrinus Carpenter. VIL. VIL. } Marine Polyzoa. IX. X. Variations of Elapomorphus lemniscatus. XI. New Carboniferous Lycopods. XII. XII. | New Sponges from Japan. 2 GAVE XV. New Freshwater Infusoria. XVI. Ovaand Embryonic Development of some Fishes.
ty
THE ANNALS
AND
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY.
[FIFTH SERIES.]
see eatedtearesesnees per litora spargite muscum, Naiades, et circiim vitreos considite fontes: Pollice virgineo teneros hic carpite flores: Floribus et pictum, dive, replete canistrum. At vos, o Nymphe Craterides, ite sub undas ; Ite, recurvato variata corallia trunco Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas Ferte, Dez pelagi, et pingui conchylia succo,”’
N. Parthenii Giannettasii Eel. 1.
No. 85. JANUARY 1885.
I.—On the Species of Micippa, Leach, and Paramicippa,
Milne-Edwards. By E. J. Miers, F.L.8., F.Z.S. [Plate I.]
WHILE engaged in the revision of the nomenclature of the species of these genera for the Report on the Brachyura of the ‘Challenger’ collection, now in course of preparation, I have recognized some errors of determination into which I have been led, in common with other students of the group; and having now subjected the whole of the material in the British Museum and ‘Challenger’ collections to a careful reexami- nation, I think it useful to publish the results of my study of the group, to redescribe the species, and present a synopsis of their arrangement, which will be found to differ in some important particulars from that given by Dr. R. Kossmann in his work on the Malacostraca of the Red Sea*, and to include references to some species and varieties described since it
appeared.
* ‘Malacostraca in Zoolog. Ergebn. einer Reise in die Kustengebiete des Rothen Meeres,’ p. 4 (1877). Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xv. 1
2 Mr. E. J. Miers on the
When Dr. Leach, in 1817, described the genus Micippa * he took as the type the Micippa cristata (Cancer créstatus, Linneus), which had been long previously described and figured by Rumphius as Cancer spinosus.
Milne-Edwards in 1834 + referred a second species, desig- nated by him Micippa philyra (Herbst), to this genus, and esta- blished (p. 332) the genus Paramicippa to include the Micippa platipes of Riippell, from the Red Sea, and a new species, P. tuberculosa, of uncertain habitat, characterizing the latter genus principally by the non-retractile eyes, the incomplete orbits, whose postforaminal portion was not developed, and the flattened and dilated second joints of the exterior antenne. The first two of these characters, however, fail in Para- micippa platipes (Riippell), which at that time was apparently known to Milne-Edwards only from Dr. Riippell’s description and figure.
In 1856 Dr. A. Gersticker { published some observations on the typical specimens of Micippa philyra (Herbst) and M. thalia (Herbst) ; he redescribed the latter species, and also described as new a species, J/. miliaris, from the Red Sea, which is regarded by Dr. Kossmann as a variety of Meippa thalia (Herbst).
In 1877 Dr. Kossmann (/. c. p. 4) admitted the following species as well established:—1. M. cristata (Linn.); 2. M. philyra (Herbst), with the varieties mascarenica, Kossm., and platipes, Riipp.; 3. MW. thalia, Herbst, with the varieties caledonica, Kossm., miliaris, Gerstacker, ¢ndica, Kossm., and aculeata, Bianconi. He also sustained the genus Parami- cippa, taking as the type P. tuberculosa, M.-E. He erro- neously regarded the Micippa spinosa of Dr. Stimpson as synonymous with J/. cristata, this species being in fact one of the best characterized of the genus.
In 1879, in my synopsis of the families and genera of the Oxyrhyncha, not having then seen Dr. Kossmann’s work, I followed some previous authors in taking Riippell’s species (MZ. platipes) as the type of the genus Paramicippa, and di- stinguished the latter genus by the less vertically deflexed rostrum and the dilated palms of the chelipedes in the male, whose fingers, when closed, meet only at the tips—characters which, perhaps, obtain only in Riippell’s species (not in P. tuberculosa), and, moreover, cannot be regarded as of generic importance §.
* Zoological Miscellany, iii. p. 15 (1817).
+ Hist. Nat. Crust. i. p. 329.
{ Archiv f. Naturgeschichte, xxii. p. 106.
§ Journ. Linn, Soe., Zool. xiv. p. 662 (1879), I am unaware of the
Species of Micippa and Paramicippa. 3
In the present revision of the genus M/c’ppa six species are regarded as well established, besides several marked varieties, some of which may prove to be specifically distinct. I follow Dr. Kossmann in restricting the genus Paramie‘ppa to the single species P. tuberculosa, with which I am able to identify the species described by myself as Mic’ppa parviros- tris by the aid of drawings of Milne-Edwards’s type speci- men, very kindly sent to me by Prof. A. Milne- Edwards, which are here published with his permission.
MICIPPA.
Micippa, Leach, Zoological Miscellany, iii. p. 15 (1817); Milne-EKd- wards, Hist. Nat. Crust. 1. p. 329 (1854); Kossmann, Malacostraca in Zoolog. Ergebnisse einer Reise in die Kiistengeb. des Rothen Meeres, p.4 (1877) ; Miers, Journ. Linn. Soc., Zool. xiv. p. 661 (1879).
Carapace nearly oblong, depressed, rounded behind, with
the dorsal surface spinose, granulated or tuberculated, some- times with a lateral series of marginal spines or spinules. Interorbital space broad, the orbits deep, with one or two fissures in the superior margin and usually in the inferior margins, which are sometimes very incomplete. Preocular spine present or absent. Rostrum broad, lamellate, and vertically or nearly vertically deflexed, more or less distinctly bilobated, and sometimes armed with lateral marginal spines. Eyes (in the species | have examined) moderately elongated, and capable of being retracted within the orbital cavity. Antenne with the basal joint usually very much enlarged and sometimes armed with one or two small distal spines or tubercles ; it occupies the space between the base of the ros- trum and the orbit and generally constitutes a part of the inferior wall of the orbit; the following joint is sometimes slightly dilated and is not concealed by the rostrum. The merus of the exterior maxillipedes is distally truncated, with the antero-external angle more or less rounded and the antero- internal angle emarginate. The chelipedes (in the male) are moderately developed or short ; palm somewhat dilated and compressed or subcylindrical ; fingers meeting along the inner margins when closed, or with a large intermarginal hiatus. Ambulatory legs moderately elongated, with the joints sub- cylindrical, sometimes granulated, but without spines or tubercles, the dactyli nearly straight, little shorter than the penultimate joints.
distinctive characters employed by R. Neumann in his memoir entitled ‘ Systematische Uebersicht der Gattungen der Oxyrhynchen’ (Leipsic, 1878), never having seen a copy of this work,
1*
4 Mr. E. J. Miers on the
The species are, I believe, restricted to the aes waters of the Indo-Pacific or Oriental region.
The species enumerated in the present revision may be distinguished by the following diagnostic characters :—
A. Rostrum armed with eight spines (three lateral spines on each side of the two distal and terminal spines).
Carapace (in the adult) with nume- rous dorsal spines. Chelipedes with the palms elongated, not dilated .... 1. Micippa cristata (Linn.).
B. Rostrum armed with four spines (one lateral spine on each side of the two distal and terminal spines). Carapace without dorsal spines.
Carapace convex, Basal antennal
joint with distal spines, the next joint
elongated and but little dilated dis-
tally. Chelipedes (in the adult male)
with the palms but little enlarged. 2. Micippa mascarenica, Kossmann, Carapace somewhat depressed. Ba-
sal antennal joint without distal
spines, the next (mobile) joint com-
pressed and distally dilated. Cheli-
pedes rather short, with the palms
enlarged ; fingers meeting only at tips,
with a wide intermarginal hiatus .... 3. Micippa philyra (Herbst).
C. Rostrum terminating in two lobes, which have the antero-internal angles acute or toothed and the antero-external angles rounded or armed with a small tubercle or tooth.
Rostrum thin, deflexed. Carapace
usually armed with dorsal spines.
Chelipedes (in the adult males) with
the palms short, enlarged ; fingers with
a wide intermarginal ‘hiatus at base... 4. Mictppa spinosa, Stimpson. Rostrum thickened, inflexed. Cara-
pace without dorsalspines. Chelipedes
with the palms not enlarged, fingers
with scarcely any intermar cinal hiatus 5. Micippa curtispina, Haswell.
D, Rostrum deeply notched or bifid, terminating in two narrow acute lobes or spines.
Carapace with or without dorsal spines. Chelipedes with the palms slender, not dilated; fingers with scarcely any intermar ginal hiatus,... 6. Mreippa thalia (Herbst).
Micippa cristata, Cancer spinosus, Rumph, d’Amboinische Rariteithamer, p. 15, pl. viii. fig. 1 (1741). Cancer cristatus, Linn. Mus. Lud. Ulric, p. 448 (1764) ; Syst. Nat. p. 1046 (1766).
Species of Micippa and Paramicippa. 5
Cancer bilobus, Herbst, Nat. Krabben u. Krebse, p, 245, pl. xviii. fig. 98 (1790).
Maia cristata, Latreille, Atlas de l’Encycl. Méth. d’Hist. Nat. pl. eelxxx. fig. 1 (1818).
Micippa cristata, Leach, Zool. Miscell. iii. p. 16, pl. exxviii. (1817) ; M.-Edwards, Hist. Nat. Crust. i. p. 330 (1834) ; Crustaeés in Cu- vier’s Régne Anim. (ed. 3), Atlas, pl. xxxi. fig. 2; Adams and White, Crustacea in Zoology of H.M.S. ‘Samarang,’ p. 16 (1848); Bleeker, Acta Societatis Indo-Neerlandice, ii. p. 15 (1857); Kossmann (part.), Malacostraca in Zoolog. Ergebnisse einer Reise in die Kiistengebiete des Rothen Meeres, p. 5, pl. iii. fig. 1 (1877).
The carapace is depressed and its dorsal surface is covered with granules or small tubercles, which tend to become spini- form, and with longer spines, disposed as follows :—two on the postfrontal region of the carapace between the orbits ; three in a transverse series on the front of the gastric region, and one behind these ; two contiguous spines on the cardiac region, four or five on each branchial region ; one on the intes- tinal region and two on the posterior margin; the lateral margins of the carapace are armed with six long spines, and the superior margins of the orbits are also six-spined, the preocular spine being strongly developed and the postocular bifid and terminating in two spines. ‘I'he rostrum is vertically deflexed, lamellate, deeply notched at the distal extremity, which is armed with two spines, behind which, on the lateral margins on each side, are three others. The basal joint of the antenna is very considerably enlarged, granulated at the distal extremity and terminating in a spine (the infraocular spine) at the antero-external angle; the following (mobile) joint is not dilated. The merus of the exterior maxillipedes is distally truncated and crenulated, with the antero-external angle subacute or obtuse. The chelipedes (in the adult male) are considerably developed, with the merus, wrist, and palm granulated ; palm rather more than twice as long as broad, and but little enlarged ; fingers with but a small intermarginal hiatus. The ambulatory legs are moderately developed, with the joints subcylindrical, granulated.
An adult male from Java measures as follows :—Length of carapace to base of rostrum 24 lines (51 millim.) ; length of rostrum 84 lines (18 millim.) ; length of a chelipede 504 lines (107°5 millim.); length of first ambulatory leg about 494 lines (L05 millim.).
Hab. Indo-Malayasian seas ; Philippine Islands ; Java (coll. Brit. Mus.).
In very small specimens the spines of the dorsal surface of the carapace and the preocular spine are not developed.
6 Mr. E. J. Miers on the
Micippa philyra.
Cancer philyra, Uerbst, Nat. Krabbe u. Krebse, iii. Heft 3, p. 51, pl. Iviii. fig. 4 (1803).
Micippe platipes, Riippell, Besehreib. 24 kurzschwanzigen Krabben des R. Meeres, p. 8, pl. i. fig. 4 2 (1830); Heller, Sitz. der Akad. Wien, xliii. (1), p. 299, pl. i. fig. 2 (1861).
Paramicippa platipes, M.-Kdw. Hist. Nat. Crust. i. p. 333 (1854).
Micippa hiearinata, Adams and White, Zoology of H.MLS. ‘ Samarang,’ Crust. p. 16 (1848).
Micippa hirtipes, Dana, Amer. Journ. of Sci. & Arts (ser. 2), xi. p. 268 (1851); Crust. in U.S. Explor. Exped. xiii. (1) p. 90, pl. 3. fig. 4 (1852), var.
Micippa spatulifrons, A. M.-Edw. N. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. viii. p.240, pl. xi. fig. 3 (1872), var.
Mieippa philyra, var. platipes, Kossmann, Zool. Ergebn. emer Reise in die Kustengeb. des R. Meeres, p. 7, pl. i. fig. 3 (1877).
Miecippa philyra, var. latifrons, Richters, Decapoda in Mobius’s Beitr. zur Meeresfauna der Insel Mauritius und der Seychellen, p. 142, pl. xv. figs. 1-5 (1880).
This form in many of its characters bears a close resem- blance to the following (Weippa mascarenica) ; but adult males may, I think, always be distinguished by the following characters :—
The carapace is broader in proportion to its length and much more depressed ; the rostrum is less abruptly deflexed ; the spines at the distal extremity of the basal antennal joint are obsolete, and the following (mobile) joint of the pedunele is dilated and compressed. The chelipedes (in the adult males) have the palm dilated and compressed, less than twice as long as broad; the fingers with a wide intermarginal space when closed and meeting only at the distal extremities. An adult male has the following dimensions :—
Length of carapace to base of rostrum nearly 12 lines (25 millim.); breadth 103 lines (22°5 millim.) ; length of a cheli- pede 143 lines (31 millim.); length of first ambulatory lee 14 lines (30 millim.).
Hab. Indo-Pacific or Oriental region.
The series in the collection of the Museum is small, and the adult and fully-grown examples are all from the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez. The specimens from the Philippines, designated Micippa bicarinata by White, are not fully grown ; a small male—length of carapace to base of rostrum nearly 43 lines (9 millim.)—has the palm of the chelipedes nearly as in the adult specimens from the Red Sea, but the second antennal joint is less dilated, although compressed. There are also in the collection small specimens trom the Fijis pre- senting similar characters as regards the antenne.
Species of Micippa and Paramicippa. 7
Micippa mascarenica,
Micippa philyra, Leach, Zool. Miscell. iii. p. 16 (1817); M.-Edwards, Hist. Nat. Crust. i. p. 350 (1854) ; Guérin-Ménéville, Icon. Crustacés, pl. viii. bes, fig. 1; A. M.-Edwards, N. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. viii. p. 239, pl. xi. fig. 2 (1872); Richters, Decapoda in Mobius’s Beitriige zur Meeresfauna der Insel Mauritius und der Seychellen, p. 143, pl. xv. figs. 6, 7 (1880) ; Miers, Crust. in Zool. Coll. H.M.S. ¢ Alert,’ p: 198 (1884).
? Micippa philyra, var. mascarenica, Kossmann, Malacostraca in Zool. Ergebnisse einer Reise in die Kiistengeb. des Rothen Meeres, p. 7, pl. ili. fig. 2 (1877); Lenz & Richters, Abhandl. Senck, Naturf,
Gesellsch. xii. p. 421 (1881).
Micippa superciliosa, Haswell, Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, iv. p. 446,
pl. xxvi. fig. 2 (1880); Cat. Austr. Crust. p. 25 (1882), var.
Paramicippa asperimanus, Miers, Crust. in Zool. H.M.S. ¢ Alert,’ p. 525
(1884), var.
The carapace is spboblong, convex, and rounded behind, deeply concave in front of the branchial regions, coarsely granulated on the dorsal surface; the lateral margins are armed with about six distant unequal spines or spinules; the orbits are completely defined, with a deep notch or fissure in the superior margin, and behind this a smaller notch; the postocular spine is well developed; the inferior margin has two fissures defining the position of the basal antennal joint ; the rostrum is vertically or nearly vertically deflexed, armed at the distal extremity with four strong triangulate lobes or teeth. The basal antennal joint is very greatly enlarged ; its distal margin is armed with several small spines or tubercles, and with a stronger spine at the antero-external angle, which constitutes the infraocular orbital spine ; the following (mobile) joints are but little dilated. The chelipedes (in the adult male) are rather slender; palm slightly compressed and little en- larged,smoothand granulated; fingers meeting along theirinner margins when closed, or with a distinct intermarginal hiatus.
Hab. Indo-Pacific or Oriental region.
An adult male in the collection of the British Museum from the Mauritius (JZ. Robillard) has the following dimen- sions :—-Length of carapace to base of rostrum nearly 21 lines (44 millim.) ; length of rostrum 94 lines (20 millim. ) ; length of a chelipede 25 lines (53 milli.) ; length of first ambulatory leg 293 lines (62 millim.).
This form, which I, after Milne-Edwards «nd Guérin- Ménéville, have hitherto designated M/. philyra, Herbst, can- not be regarded as the typical condition of that species, since Dr. Gerstiicker expressly notes that in Herbst’s Cancer philyra the second antennal joint is short and distally dilated ; and Dr. Kossmann’s name for it must be adopted, since he distinctly figures it under the designation mascarenica.
8 Mr. E. J. Miers on the
The specimens which, with much doubt, were designated M. asperimanus in the Report on the Crustacea of H.M.S. ‘ Alert,’ cannot be regarded as specifically distinet; it may be, indeed, that the examination of a series of specimens would show that M. mascarenica must itself, after all, be regarded (as its author considers it to be) as a mere variety of M. philyra.
Micippa spinosa. Micippa spinosa, Stimpson, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad, p. 217 (1857); Haswell, Cat. Austr. Crust. p. 26 (1882). Paramicippa spinosa, Miers, Cat. New-Zeal. Crust. p. 9 (1876); Crust. in Rep. Zool. H.MS. ‘Alert,’ p. 199 (1884).
In this species the carapace is depressed, somewhat wneven, closely and coarsely granulated on its dorsal surface, which, beth in the male and female, is armed with long spines dis- posed as follows :—three in the median line, of which two on the gastric and one on the cardiac region, and a strong spine on the postero-lateral margins of each branchial region, between which and the well-developed postocular spine there are from six to nine smaller spines on the lateral margins of the carapace; the posterior margin is spinuliferous; the spinules usually continued in a lateral series beneath the lateral branchial spies and above the bases of the two posterior ambulatory legs. The fissures of the superior orbital margins are narrow and deep. The pterygostomian regions are granu- lated. The rostrum is obliquely deflexed and widens slightly from the base to the antero-Jateral angles, which are broadly rounded; it is armed at its distal extremity with two small teeth, which are separated by a rather deep triangular notch. The basal antennal joint is smooth externally, but granulated on its distal margin; the next joint is not dilated; the merus of the exterior maxillipedes is broadly rounded at the antero- external angle. The chelipedes (in the adult male) are mode- rately developed; merus not distally carinated but granulated; carpus and palm granulated, the palm rather short and en- larged, fingers meeting only at the apices with a wide inter- marginal hiatus; the ambulatory legs are hairy, merus with a small spinule at the distal extremity. An adult male has the following dimensions:—Length of carapace to base of rostrum feaTy 8 lines (17 millim.) ; breadth of carapace nearly 74 lines (15°5 millim.) ; length of a chelipede 94 lines (20 millim.) ; of first ambulatory leg nearly 12 lines (25 millim.),
Hab. East and South Australia (in shallow water, not exceeding 15 fathoms, H.JL.S. ‘ Challenger’): New Zea- land (coll. Brit. Mus.).
Species of Micippa and Paramicippa. 9
Micippa spinosa, var. affinis. Paramicippa affinis, Miers, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (ser. 5) iv. p. 18 (1879).
Of this variety, described by me as a distinct species in 1879, from a single female from Bass’s Straits, found among the fishes of H.M.S. ‘Challenger,’ there are, among the ‘Challenger’ Brachyura, two males, also from Bass’s Straits, taken off KE. Moncceur Island (Station 162), in 38 fathoms.
It is distinguished by the absence of well-developed spines from the dorsal surface of the carapace, which are represented sometimes by elevated granules or small tubercles, by the form of the front, which does not widen to the distal extremity (but has parallel lateral margins) and has a very small terminal notch, and by the smoother basal antennal joint. Length of carapace to base of rostrum (in an adult male) 6 lines (12°5 millim.); breadth of carapace 53 lines (11°5 millim.) ; length of a chelipede about 7 lines (15 millim.), of first ambulatory leg about 74 lines (16 millim.).
This variety, together with the typical Micippa spinosa, will be figured in my Report on the Brachyura of the ‘ Chal-
lenger’ expedition.
Micippa curtispina.
Micippa curtispina, Haswell, Proc. Linn. Soc. N S. Wales, iv. p. 446, pl. xxv. fig. 1 (1880); Catalogue Australian Stalk- & Sessile-eyed Crustacea, p. 25 (1882).
This remarkable species is allied to M. affinis, but distin- guished by the form of the rostrum, which is vertically deflexed and curves inwards towards the distal extremity, which is emar- ginate, and by the slender chelipedes, whose merus-joints are more strongly carinated above at the distal extremity.
In the specimens in the Museum collection which I refer to this species, therostrum isconsiderably thickened and the lateral distal lobes are obsolete, or nearly obsolete, so that the lateral margins converge uninterruptedly to the emarginate apex. The postocular orbital tooth is very small; the pterygosto- mian regions are turgid ; the basal antennal joint is granulated, and the following joint is not, or is but very slightly, dilated ; the merus of the exterior maxillipedes is small, and its antero- external angle less broadly rounded than in M. affinis; the distal carina of the merus of the chelipedes, both in the larger female and smaller male, is entire, not dentated ; palm very slender, and fingers nearly straight, with scarcely any inter- marginal hiatus. The larger (female) specimen has the fol- lowing dimensions :—Length of carapace to base of rostrum 10 lines (21 millim.), breadth about 7} lines (15 millim.) ;
10 Mr. E. J. Miers on the
length of a chelipede 84 lines (18 millim.), of first ambulatory leg nearly 10 lines (21 millim.).
Hab. Port Denison, 5 fathoms (Haswell), Torres Straits (Prince-of-Wales Channel and Thursday Island, 3—9 fathoms) (4.M.S. 6 Alert’).
I have examined a small specimen of this species in a col- lection from Singapore, made by Surgeon-Major 8. Archer.
Micippa thalia.
Cancer thalia, Herbst, Naturg. Krabben u. Krebse, i. (3) p. 50, pl. lviii. fig. 8 (1805).
Paramicippa sexspinigera, White, List Crust. Brit. Mus. p. 9 (1847).
Micippa thalia, Gerstiicker, Archiv f. Naturgesch. xxii. p. 109 (1856) ; A. M.-Edwards, N. Arch. Mus. Hist. Nat. viii. p. 238, pl. x1. fig. 1 (1872); Miers, Crustacea in Zoolog. Coll. H.M.S. ‘Alert,’ p. 198 (1884).
Micippa inermis, Haswell, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, iv. p. 445, pl. xxvi. fig. 3 (1880) ; Cat. Australian Crustacea, p. 24 (1882).
Micippa pusilla, Bianconi, Mem, Accad. Bologna (serie seconda), ix. p- 205, pl. i. fig. 1 (1869).
Micippa thalia, var. caledonica, Kossmann, Malacostraca in Zool. Ergebn. einer Reise in die Kiistengeb. des R. Meeres, p. 8, pl. iii. fig. 4 (1877).
Micippa thalia, var. indica, Kossmann, ¢. ¢. p. 8 (1877).
The carapace is moderately convex or depressed, suboblong or broader at the branchial regions ; its dorsal surface is tomen- tose and closely granulated, and usually armed with spines upon the dorsal surface, which, when present, are disposed as follows:—A_ strong supraocular orbital spine, two median spines on the gastric region of the carapace placed one behind the other, and one on each branchial region, and sometimes two on the posterior margin; the upper margin of the orbit also has three spines behind the supraocular spine, and the lateral margins of the carapace are armed with from six to nine spines or spinules. ‘The rostrum is nearly vertically detlexed, deeply emarginate, and terminates in two strong acute lobes or spines, the apices of which usually curve somewhat outwardly. ‘The basal antennal joint is granulated and considerably dilated, but less so than in some species of the genus, and bears a spine at its antero-external angle (the infraocular orbital spine) ; behind this the orbit is incomplete. The chelipedes (in the adult male) are rather small; merus sometimes granu- lated, carpus and palm nearly smooth, the merus not carinated above ; the palm slender and not enlarged ; the fingers nearly straight, and without any or with but a very small intermar- ginal hiatus. The ambulatory legs are very tomentose, the merus and carpus joints are sometimes thickened, and the merus may have a small distal spinule, but the joints are otherwise nearly smooth, not spinuliferous.
» Species of Micippa and Paramicippa. 11
Hab. Indo-Pacific or Oriental region (from the Red Sea and coast of Natal to New Caledonia).
In that which Dr. Gerstiicker distinguishes as the typical form of this very variable species (from an examination of Herbst’s type specimen), the anterior dorsal spines of the cara- pace are apparently not developed, but there are distinct lateral branchial and posterior marginal spines. Length of carapace and rostrum (inafemale) 18 (German) lines, breadth 12 lines.
Ihave seen no adult examples presenting exactly these characters, the posterior marginal spines being deficient. A small male from the coral reefs at Pa-tchu-Sau (H.ILS. ‘ Sama- rang’), in the British-Museum collection, has well-developed lateral epibranchial spines, but differs in some other par- ticulars.
Micippa thalia, var. miliaris.
Micippa miliaris, Gerstiicker, Archiv f. Naturgesch. p. 110 (1856).
Mictppa thalia, var. maliaris, Kossmann, ¢. c. p. 8 (1877).
This form is apparently distinguished from the typical M. thalia only by the well- ~developed lateral marginal spines of the carapace. ‘The second joint of the antenne is slightly dilated towards the distal extremity.
Hab. Red Sea ( Gerstécker).
Micippa thalia, var. aculeata. Micippa thalia, De Haan, Crustacea in vy. Siebold’s Fauna Japonica, p- 98, pl. xxii. fig. 5, and pl. G (1889). Micippa aculeata, Bianconi, Mem. Accad, Bologna, iii. p. 103, pl. x. fio. 2 (1851).
Micippa Haunt, Stimpson, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. p. 217 (1857),
Micippa thalia, var, aculeata, Kossmann, ¢. c. p. 8, pl. ili. tig. 5 (1877).
This variety is distinguished by having the dorsal spines of the carapace as well as (usually) some or all of the lateral marginal spines well developed.
Hab. Seas of China and Japan (De Haan, Stimpson), Mozambique (Biancont). An adult male from Mozambique is in the British-Museum collection, presented by Prof. Bian- coni, and labelled “ Mrctippa cornuta, Bianconi’’*.
The dimensions of the male from Mozambique are as fol- lows :—Length of carapace to base of rostrum 144 lines
* The Cancer cornutus of Linnzeus, which Milne-Edwards considers to be a species of this genus, differs in the arrangement of the dorsal spines of the carapace from any species with which I am acquainted, except perhaps this species and Micippa cristata, from which latter it is apparently distinguished by the smooth, terete, naked chelipedes, Kc. It may be identical With a variety of M, thalia.
12 On the Species of Micippa and Paramicippa. °
(30°5 millim.) ; length of rostrum 5lines (10°5 millim.) ; breadth of carapace 133 lines (28°5 millim.) ; length of a chelipede 163 lines (35 millim.) ; length of first ambulatory leg 203 lines (43°5 millim.).
PARAMICIPPA.
Paramicippa, M.-Edwards (partim), Hist. Nat. Crust. 1. p. 882 (1884) ; Kossmann, Malacostraca in Zoolog. Ergebnisse einer Reise in die Kiistengebiete des Rothen Meeres, p. 5 (1877).
The distinctive characters of this genus, if restricted to the single species P. tuberculosa, M.-K., are as follows :—The carapace is depressed, broadly pyriform or nearly orbiculate in outline; the orbits are scarcely defined either above or below the eye-peduncles, which are slender, straight, and not com- pletely retractile; the postocular lobe, which terminates in two spines or teeth, is well developed. The basal antennal joint 1s considerably enlarged, yet not dilated so greatly as in Micippa ; it is nearly oblong in form, with the distal extremity slightly concave, and bears a small spine or tooth at the antero-external angle; the next joint, which is placed on a level with the superior margin of the front, is very short, triangulate or cordate, and dilated and flattened. ‘The form of the chelipedes in the male is not known; the ambulatory legs are robust and rather short, and their merus- and carpus- joints are covered above with strong tubercles, which tend to become spines.
Paramicippa tuberculosa. (Pl. I. tig. 1.)
Paramicippa tuberculosa, Milne-Edwards, Hist. Nat. Crust. i. p. 38
1834). Ns eres Miers, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. (ser. 5) iv. p. 13, pl. iv. fig. 9 (1879).
Carapace broadly pyriform, very slightly convex, and covered with numerous tubercles, which are sometimes acute and spinuliform; lateral margins armed with six or seven short spines, which are more or less distinctly granulated on the margins. ‘The rostrum is small, deflexed in its distal half, and divided by a median fissure into two compressed lobes, which are slightly concave at the distal extremity ; the postocular lobe, as noted above, is strongly developed and terminates in two spines or teeth. ‘The ocular peduncles are slightly enlarged at base and constricted near to the distal extremity, and project beyond the superior margin of the orbit for a distance about equal to the width of the rostrum at base. The basal antennal joint is not greatly dilated at the distal extremity the next joint is inserted between the base of the
Prof. F. Vejdovsky on Freshwater Sponges. 13
rostrum and the inner canthus of the eye, and the third joint is slender, cylindrical, and longer than the second. ‘The merus of the exterior maxillipedes is considerably dilated at the antero-external angle. A few hairs upon the carapace and legs. Colour brownish.
Hab. ? (South Australia, Port Lincoln: coll. Brit. Mus.)
The description, slightly amplified, is adapted from Milne- Edwards’s work; the figure from sketches, very kindly sent by Prof. A. Milne-Edwards, of the type specimen in the Paris collection. The eye-peduncles should probably be repre- sented as more distinctly constricted near to the distal extre- mity, and the second antennal joint as more dilated, as in Milne-Edwards’s description and the type of M. parvirostris in the British Museum. This latter further differs from the figure now given only in having the penultimate as well as the antepenultimate joints of the legs sometimes armed with a few tubercles.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE I.
Fig. 1. Paramicippa tuberculosa, M.-Edw. Adult female, magnified (from a sketch of the type specimen in the collection of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris).
Fig. 1 a. Dorsal view of the front of the cervical region.
Fig. 16. Interior view of part of the cervical region, showing the form of the basal antennal joint and exterior maxillipedes.
Fig. 1c. Chelipede.
I].—Observations on some Freshwater Sponges. By Professor FRANZ VEJDOVSKY *.
Dr. W. DyBowskI not long since sent me some specimens, well preserved in alcohol, of the freshwater sponge desig- nated by him Spongilla stbirica, with the request that I would submit them to an examination, and prepare the figures thus obtained for his memoir relating to the above-mentioned species t. I undertook this investigation the more willingly because, since the appearance of Dr. Dybowski’s work upon the freshwater sponges of the Russian empire, I was very
* Translated by W. 8. Dallas, F.L.S., from a separate copy, furnished by the author, of the paper in the ‘Sitzungsberichte der k. bohmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1884, pp. 55-60, pl. 11.
+ As Dr. Dybowski’s parcel was rather late in reaching me and he had in the meantime sent his memoir to press, I publish these observations as a supplement.
14 Prof. F. Vejdovsky on Freshwater Sponges.
anxious to convince myself as to the rank of the species in question, as also with regard to its relationships with the freshwater sponges occurring in Europe. As is well known I have compared Spongilla stbirica with S. (Huspongilla) jordanensis, while Carter has recently regarded it as identical with Spongilla fragilis, Leidy (S. Lordiit, Bow.). Krom my examinations and comparisons of the American species with Spongilla sibirica, the latter proves to be really identical with S. fragilis, Leidy; nevertheless, in the form observed by Dybowski, some not unessential differences occur, to which I propose to refer in the following remarks, and at the same time to append some observations upon other freshwater sponges.
The specimens at my disposal are stated to be from the river Danici, in the neighbourhood of Charkow, and usually form small nodules 2-3 centim. in diameter; whilst a small irregularly triangular fragment represents a nearly flat cushion-like plate, furnished with a large regularly circular osculum and numerous smaller pores. At the surface of the nodules and of the lamella I find no gemmules; but, on the other hand, the latter occur in the interior of the nodules in great numbers and of two different forms and colours, namely :—
1. Pale whitish-yellow gemmules, which do not cohere, but appear to be irregularly scattered in the tissue of the sponge. ‘The general form and structure of these gemmules are the same as I have indicated in the case of the young gemmules of Huspongilla lacustris (see my memoir on the freshwater sponges of Bohemia, p. 17, pl. i. fig. 13). In point of fact such an immature gemmule of Spongilla fragilis, Leidy (S. stbirica, Dyb.), agrees with that of Huspongilla lacustris, inasmuch as it is quite naked, possesses a single horny membrane, and at the superior pole is destitute of the air-tube which is so characteristic of this species. Some- what older gemmules indeed are still naked, but, at the pole indicated, they bear around the process which is generally regarded as an aperture a short, straight, somewhat inflated tube, which later on curves like a horn and becomes completely closed at the extremity.
2. Among the pale-coloured gemmules we find now and then, although rather rarely, an isolated brownish gemmule. On the other hand, such gemmules, generally of a dark brown colour, are present in great numbers united in groups of three or more, usually of eight, thirteen, or fifteen, but some- times of from twenty to thirty, completely enclosed by the surrounding skeletal tissue of the sponge. In examining such
Prof. F. Vejdovsky on Freshwater Sponges. 15
a group of gemmules, even under a low power, it is soon seen that the above-mentioned horn-like tube projects externally from each gemmule. As to the mode in which such groups of gemmules are produced, transverse sections give the most reliable evidence. Thus in a transverse section, showing five gemmules immersed in a common envelope, we sce one gemmule placed in the centre of the group, while the other four lie in the periphery of the first. In other sections we may find several more gemmules both at the periphery and in the centre. Every peripheral gemmule projects outwardly by the horn-like tube from the common envelope. The walls of the tube appear much weaker than the thick, dark-brown, horny, proper enveloping membrane of the gemmules, the cellular contents of which contain very numerous elliptical starch-granules. ‘The common envelope of a group of gem- mules consists of hollow indented columns, which appear to be divided into a series of superimposed chamberlets by transverse lamella. We find here the same arrangement which has already been made known for one series of the freshwater sponges, especially by Carter’s writings, and which I have also demonstrated in Vrochospongilla erinaceus, and interpreted as an air-chamber layer. It probably represents a modification of the ordinary granular parenchyma-envelope which JI have demonstrated in the indigenous species of Euspongilla and Ephydatia, but have also found in the exotic Spongillide, which I obtained by the kindness of MM. H. J. Carter and EK. Potts, namely Tubella pennsylvanica*, Par- mula Batesii, Meyenia Leidyi +, Heteromeyenia argyrosperma, Cartertus latitenta and tenosperma, Ke. In Meyentia Leidyt and Tubella pennsylvanica the parenchymatous envelope is very deep, so that the amphidisci attached to the horny membrane seem to be quite concealed. The gemmules of Parmula Batesii have the same form as those of species of Ephydatia, namely globular. On the thick horny membrane there stand three alternating series of the scutitorm amphi- disci, which appear to be enveloped by a deep parenchymatous layer, as already represented by Carter.
This parenchymatous layer therefore becomes modified into
* The form and arrangement of the skeletal spicules of Twubella reticu- lata agree with those represented by Marshall in his Potamolepis Leub- Nitze.
+ Meyenia Leidyi certainly contains amphidisci of the same form as Trochospongilla erinaceus, but is by no means identical with the latter. The smooth skeletal spicules and the peculiar form of the depressed flask- shaped gemmules, flattened at the inferior pole, as well as their deep granular parenchyma-layer, are characters which mark Meyenta Leidyi as a distinct species.
16 Prof. F. Vejdovsky on Freshwater Sponges.
a peculiar aerostatic apparatus, which is already well known through the older observations of Carter in Spongilla Cartert (“ microcell-structure,” ‘ Annals,’ 1881, vol. vii. p. 83) and more recently in S. fragilis, but also by the careful investi- gations of Marshall in S. nitens. Dybowski also mentions this layer (“‘ Belegmembran ’’), which consists of “ non-nucle- ate, polygonal cells, from 0°006-0-09 millim. in size.”
This statement is correct, for even the above-mentioned isolated brown gemmules are surrounded by the corresponding envelope; it is, however, comparatively feebly developed, inasmuch as the cell-spaces, or rather air-chambers, exist only in one layer, and appear like a network, consisting of de- pressed, usually six-sided chamberlets. In the groups of these gemmules this network is already united ; and when several more gemmules come together to form the above-mentioned balls, the air-chambers also increase in number, and the thick- ness of this layer accordingly becomes more considerable. In the spaces between the gemmules especially a thick layer of air-chambers is produced, while the upper poles of the peri- pheral gemmules (7. e. the poles projecting outwards) are covered only by a single layer of chamberlets.
The coating-spicules certainly appear upon the surface and also scattered in the interior of the air-chamber layer; but for the most part they group themselves around the horny membranes of the gemmules. ‘The peculiarities of these coating spicules are already sufficiently well known through Dybowski’s memoir.
From what has just been stated it appears that the sponge from the river Danici, which Dr. Dybowski names Spongilla sibirica, agrees essentially with the North-American Spongilla fragilis, Leidy. The more detailed comparison of the two forms shows the following differences and distinctions :—
1. In Spongilla fragilis, Leidy, the groups of gemmules also occur in fours (var. segregata, Potts) ; but I have also found isolated gemmules, as well as groups of two, three, and up to six. Out of a hundred examples I found no such large number of gemmules in one group as in “S. stbirica.”
2. The horny membrane in S. fragilis, Leidy, is always enveloped by a deep air-chamber layer, in consequence of which the true gemmules seem to be quite concealed, so that they cannot be observed from the surtace. In “S, stbirica” the horny membranes are always to be seen distinctly.
3. The air-tube of Spongilla fragilis, Leidy, possesses walls of the same thickness as those of the gemmule proper.
Prof. F. Vejdovsky on Freshwater Sponges. guy
The polar air-tube of Spongilla fragilis plays an important part in the existence of the gemmules. It is in direct con- nexion with the low superior process of the gemmule, which is generally regarded as an aperture of issue for the young sponge enclosed in the chitinous membrane. Whether it is really an aperture, however, I cannot state with certainty, as I never succeeded, either in living gemmules or in longitudinal sections, in demonstrating anything of the kind. It rather appears to be much more probable that the polar process is also completely closed by the horny membrane, by which the space within the gemmule appears to be completely cut off from the air-tube. The air-tubes of the dry gemmules of Spongilla fragilis are occupied by large air-bladders. A similar apparatus has been demonstrated by Carter and Mar- shall in S. Carter’, and I can confirm the statements of those naturalists from my own investigations. Moreover I am acquainted with similar arrangements in Tubella reticulata, Cart., in which the air-tube is inconsiderably inflated. The apparatus in question is very interesting in the remarkable North-American genus Carter‘us. In this it forms a high hollow tube, which, when the gemmules are thrown into water, is always directed upwards. The gemmules in this genus, however, are not globular, but only slightly convex above, while below they are hemispherical, so that the median longitudinal section through a gemmule resembles a little boat, the air-tube rising in the centre appearing not unlike a mast. The air-bubble enclosed within it evidently assists not a little in maintaining the gemmule at the surface of the water. In Spongilla fragilis the air-tubes are of compara- tively more considerable dimensions than in any other species that | have examined; they must, however, contain a larger quantity of air, in order to sustain the certainly heavier groups of gemmules for a time at the surface of the water,
The memoir by Wilhelm Retzer (‘ Die deutschen Siiss- wasserschwimme, Inaugural Dissertation, Tiibngen, 1883), which probably appeared simultaneously with my previous work, contains descriptions of some freshwater sponges which had been already established by Noll (‘ Zoologische Garten,’ 1870), but which require a fresh investigation in order to determine their rank and their relations to those described in my monograph. ‘This applies especially to Spongilla Lieber- kiihnii, Noll, and also to S. contecta, Noll, which, in my opinion, must agree with S. fragilis. Whether Spongilla
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xv. 2
18 Mr. H.J. Carter on Spongilla fragilis, Leidy, and
mirabilis, Retzer, is identical with the Hphydatia amphizona described by me cannot be decided from Retzer’s description and sketchy figures; a comparison of the types described by Retzer is very desirable.
P.S.—After I had completed the manuscript of these remarks I received from Dr. Anton Wierzejski, of Cracow, some preparations of the freshwater sponges occurring in Galicia, among which, to my surprise, I also found Spongilla fragilis, Leidy. We must await Dr. Wierzejski’s mono- graph of the Spongillid fauna, which is shortly to appear, for details as to the peculiarities of this freshwater sponge, which is evidently very characteristic of the Palearctic and Nearctic regions.
I1I.—WNote on Spongilla fragilis, Lecdy, and a new Species of Spongilla from Nova Scotia. By H. J. Carter, F.RS. &e.
Wir reference to the “P.S.” to Prof. F. Vejdovsky’s ‘ Observations ’ (supra), | would here remark that Mr. Stuart O. Ridley, F.L.S., of the British Museum, has lately sent me a specimen of Spongilla fragilis, Leidy, as I have described it under the name of S. Lordit, Bk. (‘Annals,’ Feb. 1881, vol. vii. p. 89), which he discovered in the river Wye, about ten miles above Hereford, England, in August last, growing
over the internal surface of a valve of Unio margaritiferus.
This is the first time that this species of freshwater sponge has been recognized in England. The prolonged aperture of the chitinous coat is not turned to one side, but simply vertical, as in 8. Lordi¢, with a delicate film (for the specimen is dry) of sarcode stretched across its mouth.
On the 8th August last, too, Lreceived from A. H. MacKay, B.A., B.Sc., of the Pictou Academy, Pictou, a similar speci- men growing over a small branch of wood, together with the variety called ‘ segregata”” by Mr. Edward Potts, of Phila- delphia, which Mr. MacKay had found in MacIntosh Lake, Nova Scotia.
Further, on the 26th August following I received another collection of freshwater sponges, obtained by Mr. MacKay from the lakes near Pictou, in Nova Scotia, among which are good-sized specimens of the following :—
ee
a new Species of Spongilla from Nova Scotia. 19
Spongilla lacustris, var. lacustrioides, Potts (the Ameri- can representative of S. /acustr?s, auct.), from Lakes MacIntosh, Forbes, Lochaber, and Black Brook, Kast River, St. Mary’s, respectively.
Aeyenta fluviatilis, auct. Garden-of-Eden Lake.
Hveretti, Mills. MacKay’s Lake.
Heteromeyenia Ryderi, Potts. MacKay’s Lake.
argyrosperma, Potts. Garden-of-Eden Lake.
Together with a specimen of another species which, until Just now that I have had occasion to examine it more parti- cularly, I thought had been Spongilla fragilis, var. segregata. However, it turns out to be very different; and being new, I herewith append its description under the name of
Spongilla Mackayt.
Sessile, spreading, charged with little subglobular bodies like large statoblasts, about 1-12th inch in diameter. Skele- tal spicule acerate, shghtly curved, sharp-pointed, more or less thickly spined, averaging 50 by 24-6000ths inch in its greatest diameters ; accompanied abundantly by a minute birotulate flesh-spicule precisely like that of Meyenia Everetti, that is 3 to 4-6000ths inch long, with very thin smooth shaft about four times longer than the diameter of the rotule, which is 1-6000th inch, toothed, with the teeth recurved. Statoblast globular, consisting of a thick chitinous coat filled with the usual germinal matter, from which is very slightly prolonged an everted trumpet-shaped aperture; bearing slight traces externally of microcell-structure and the polygonal tissue; making one of twenty such which are so arranged as to form a subglobular body of the size mentioned ; situated around a central cavity with their apertures dxwards ; the whole sup- ported by statoblast-spicules of various sizes, which, inter- crossing each other, form a nest-hke globular capsule in which the outer parts of the statoblasts are fixed and covered ; apparently (for the specimen is dry) deficient at one point, which leads into the central cavity. Statoblast-spicules ace- rate, sharp-pointed, like the skeletal spicules, but becoming much shorter and more coarsely spined as they approach the chitinous coats of the statoblasts, where they may be reduced to at least 27-G000ths inch in length, although often increased to 4-6000ths inch in thickness, and their spines, which are very irregular in size and situation, often as long as the spi- cule is broad. Size of specimen about 1-6th inch high and
2 inches in horizontal diameter. O%
20 Mr. E. Potts on the wide Distribution of
Hab. Freshwater.
Loc. Mackay’s Lake, near Pictou, Nova Scotia.
Obs. The most remarkable point presented by this species is that its flesh-spicule should be identical with that of Mey- enia Everetti, whose statoblast is covered with a thick crust of long and large birotules, denticulated, with recurved teeth like those of Meyenta Baileyi &c., showing that this kind of flesh-spicule may be present in totally different species of freshwater sponges, unless it should be owing to the presence and proximity of M/. Everett’, which, as above stated, grows in the same lake.
It is remarkable, too, that the spiculation of Spongilla Mackay?, both skeletal and flesh-, should be almost identical with those which I have described and illustrated of the freshwater sponge-spicules so abundant in the diluvial deposits of the Altmiihl valley, in Bavaria (‘ Annals,’ Nov. 1883, vol. xii. p. 329 &c., pl. xiv. fig. 18, a, 6, g, h, 7).
IV.—On the wide Distribution of some American Freshwater
Sponges. By KE. Ports *.
ALLUSION having been made to the wide distribution of certain species of spiders over the North-American continent, Mr. E. Potts, referring to the freshwater sponge-fauna of this country, said that Spongilla fragilis, the first species named in America, described by Dr. Leidy in 1851 from specimens collected near Philadelphia, had since been found abundantly along the Atlantic coast from Florida to Nova Scotia. It had been gathered at several points along the St. Lawrence and in the great lakes through the middle continent, and in the far west had been described by Dr. Bowerbank, in 1863, under the name of S. Zordzi, as found in the lakes and streams flowing from the Cascade Range in British Columbia, afiluents of the majestic Columbia river. The species may therefore be regarded as strictly continental in its range, and until very recently it has been distinctively American. It is a little singular that the only other place in which it has been noticed is in the neighbourhood of Charkow, in Russia, where it was discovered a few months since by Dr. L. Dybowski.
The specimens of this species from Nova Scotia had been collected by Mr. A. H. MacKay, B.A., B.Sc., of Pictou
* Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 2nd Sept. 1884, p. 215. Reprinted from a copy sent by the author to Mr. H. J. Carter, F.R.S.
some American Freshwater Sponges. ZT
Academy, Pictou, N. 8., from whom the speaker had recently received a collection of sponges, phenomenal in its character, both as regards the number of genera and species represented and the excellent judgment that had attached to most of them their proper names from apparently very insufficient data. The collection was the result of a few days’ search within a limited district, “‘ from lakes in and near the watershed of Nova Scotia, near the borders of the three counties of Pictou, Guysboro, and Antigonish,” at elevations of from 100 to 700 feet above sea-level. Of the genus Spongilla it contains three species, S. lacustris, S. fragilis, and S. iglootformis ; of the genus Meyenia two species, M. fluviatilis and M. Hveretti ; of the genus Heteromeyenia two, Hl. argyrosperma and H. Ryderi; and of the genus Tubella one species, T. pennsyl- vanica—eight species, representing four genera. Besides these there were small specimens of another species, evidently new, but whose generic relations could not be determined on account of the absence of statoblasts.
In some respects the most important find in the collection is Meyenia Everett, Mills, this being only the second instance in which the species has been discovered. ‘The original locality was Gilder Pond, upon Mt. Everett, in Berkshire Co,, Mass., at an elevation of 1800 or 2000 feet above the sea. It was there collected by Dr. F. Wolle and Mr, H. 8. Kitchel, of Bethlehem, Pa., well known for their invaluable work among the desmids and diatoms, and examined simultaneously by Mr. H. Mills, of Buffalo, N. Y., and the speaker. Its most striking peculiarity is the presence all through the dermal tissues of very minute birotulate spicules, the only instance in which these have been observed as characteristic features of the dermal surface in any freshwater sponges, unless the com- plicated forms found in Meyenta plumosa, Carter, may be con- sidered an exception.
These birotulates in the present collection average one third longer than those before examined and are in every way more robust. ‘The speaker was gratified in finding this confirma- tion of a rule which he has long since observed to hold amongst the infinite variations of size and form noticeable in collections of the same species from various localities, viz. that the spicules of all species increase regularly in size and solidity as we descend from high altitudes towards the sea- level, where is found the extreme limit of the series. He does not attribute this gradation to a change of climatic conditions, but more probably to a gradual and constant improvement in the food-supply or in the siliceous constituent of the water. He has traced the workings of the rule more particularly
22 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
through the very variable species Spongilla lacustris and Be fragilis, in Meyenia fluviatilis, 11 Heteromeyenia argyro- sperma and H. Ryderi, and, lastly and most conspicuously, in Tubella pennsylvrnica. The extremes in this last series differ so widely that they would hardly be taken to belong to the same species; but the intermediate grades have all been col- lected largely from the same stream, and as a result several species named in this and other cases have relapsed into synonyms.
V.—Notices of Fungi in Greek and Latin Authors. By the Rev. Witt1am Hovueuton, M.A., F.L.8S.
Ir may perhaps interest some of the readers of ‘The Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ if I bring before them in a collected form all that I have been able to gather on the subject of fungi from the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. J am not aware whether anything of this kind has been hitherto attempted by any English writer; but in Ger- many Dr. H. O. Lenz, in his useful ‘ Botanik der alten Griechen und Rémer’ (Gotha, 1859), has collected together the scattered notices of fungi which appear in classical authors, and has added footnotes containing his own observations. The late Dr. Badham, in his ‘Treatise on the Esculent Funguses of England’ (London, 1863), gives a short account of their classical history ; but no systematic collection has, so far as I know, been hitherto made. Although, perhaps, the subject is not one of very great importance, still it is one to which a certain degree of interest attaches itself both for the general reader and for the mycologist.
The earliest Greek writer who takes any notice of fungi is Theophrastus (cire. B.c. 500) ; there is no allusion to these plants in the works of Homer and Hesiod. The word pv«ns indeed occurs in Herodotus (iii. 64), but it there means the cap of the sheath of a sword, from its conical or fungus-like form. Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. i. 1, § 11) speaks of the puxns and the dévoy as having neither root, stem (xavdos), branch, bud, leaf, flower, nor fruit, neither again bark, pith, fibres, nor veins; but in i. 5, §3, he speaks of the stem (kavaos) of the pv«ns as being of uniform structure or even- ness, without knots, prickles, or divisions. In 1. 6, § 5, the vdvov, pvens, wéCis, and yepaverov (Kepavviov) are mentioned as having no root. The mvxntes in iil. 7, § 6, are said to
ee ae
in Greek and Latin Authors. 23
grow out of and near the roots of oaks and other trees. In his treatise on odours (‘De Odoribus,’ Frag. iv. 3, ed. Schneider) Theophrastus notes that the wuxntes which grow in dung have no bad smell. This is all that Theophrastus has said concerning fungi, and it is worth while to remark that this most ancient Greek writer, who professedly dis- courses on plants, has absolutely not left us anything suffi- ciently descriptive to enable us to know definitely what most of the above-named plants respectively denote. He seems to have taken it for granted that the people of his time knew what particular plants he was speaking of, and that therefore there was no need of particular definite description. We have to learn what fungi the Greek names really denote by com- paring what Theophrastus has said with what other Greek and Roman writers have recorded. The question of identity of these names therefore shall wait until .we have brought forward further evidence.
After Theophrastus comes Nicander (B.c. cire. 185), a physician, grammarian, and poet, who wrote on various sub- jects; but most of his works have been lost. His two poems, the ‘ Theriaca’ and the ‘ Alexipharmaca,’ in hexameter lines, have been preserved to us. In the first-mentioned poem Nicander discourses of venomous animals and the wounds inflicted by them ; there is much absurd fable mixed up with his zoological remarks, and perhaps Haller was not far wrong when he described this treatise of nearly a thousand hexa- meter lines as being “longa, incondita, et nullius fidei farrago.”’ The ‘ Alexipharmaca,’ of about six hundred lines in the same metre, treats of poisons and their antidotes, and is about as valuable as his other poem. His Greek is obseure and full of out-of-the-way words. Bentley, with great truth, called Nicander “ antiquarium, obsoleta et casca verba venantem, et vel sui seeculi lectoribus difficilem et obscurum.”
As Nicander is very seldom read and his works are in few private libraries, it may be well to quote his lines on fungi as a sample of his style and diction :—
Mj pev 51 Copopa Kaxdy xOovds avépa Kydoe ToAAdKe pev oTEpvotow avowdéov, GAdoteE 0 cyxor, €00’ id Porevorra tpapy Babvy 6Axov €xidyns, joy dvexpaivoy oropiay 7’ dropeadioy aoOpna’ keivo kakov Cpopa, To 67 p’ Vdeovee pUKNTas raprndny, Aw yap em’ ovvopa KeKpiTat adXo- "AAG ov y’ 7) padavoro mépots oreipoded KOpon?, i) puTAS KA@OovTa mrepl omddiKa KoovCUs, moAake kal xadkoto maAat pepoyndros avOnv" tiddore KAnpatécooay ev’ d&ei Opixteo Téppny’ Symore puCada tpiBe mupiria Baupare Xpatvov
24 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
bal , ~
7) Nirpov, rore PvAXOv evadddpevov mpacijot
Kapdapidos, Mnddv Te Kai eumpiovra olvnrur. \ \ \ > \ a , , t
avy O€ Kal oivnpny proyn Tpvya Tepow@aao
née maTov oTpovboto Katorkddos’ ek Se Bapetav
X€lpa KaTenpate@y epvyot KaBnpova Kjpa.—Alexiph, 521-536.
“‘ Let not the evil ferment of the earth, which often causes swellings in the belly or strictures in his throat, distress a man; for when it has grown up under the viper’s deep hollow track it gives forth the poison and hard breathing of its mouth ; an evil ferment is that; men generally call the ferment by the name of fungus (uv«ns), but different kinds are distinguished by different names; but do thou take the mary-coated heads of the cabbage, or cut from around the twisting stems of the rue or old copper particles which have long accumulated, or pound clematis into dust with vinegar, then bruise the roots of pyrethrum, adding a sprinkling of vinegar or soda, and the leaf of cress which grows in gardens, with the medic plant and pungent mustard, and burn wine- lees into ashes or the dung of the domestic fowl; then, putting your right finger in your throat to make you sick, vomit forth the baneful pest.”
The expression ‘evil ferment of the earth,” to denote the general name of fungus represented by the Greek word wuxns, is, | think, peculiar to Nicander. The scholiast explains it in various ways, which are unsatisfactory ; e.g. ‘ he calls the puxns a ferment because it is like the ferment of the earth, that is, clay, for it is like a clod of earth;” or, “it is called a ferment because when undigested the fungus causes fermen- tation in the bowels.”” Perhaps Nicander was referring to the white mass of mycelium from which the plant grows ; and the term ferment for a fungus is not far amiss. Some of the antidotes he recommends to persons who have been poisoned by fungi will be found in later writers; as Nicander was greatly esteemed as a physician in his day, his prescriptions naturally remained long im vogue; the pharmacopeeia of the ancients did not admit of much variation from the old receipts. The recommendation to take vinegar after fungus-poisoning would doubtless be of use in the case of fungi containing poisonous alkalies, and no one can doubt that his proposed emetic, if taken in time, would prove efficacious.
There is no mention by Greek writers of fungi, as far as I can learn, from the date of Nicander to that of Dioscorides, the Cilician physician who probably lived in the second cen- tury of the Christian era; the word pv«ns occurs neither in the Greek poets, tragic or comic, nor in the historians.
in Greek and Latin Authors. 25
Atheneus, however, has preserved to us a few quotations relating to wvxntes from older authors, which I will notice by and by. The Latin word fungus, which may be taken to be the representative of the Greek wvens, “ a fungus of any kind,” is by no means of common occurrence in Roman authors. Virgil once uses the term, but not in reference to the plant, but to the well-known growth on the wick of the lamp, which was supposed to forbode rain; and Aratus lone before had spoken of these fungoid excrescences, Avyvoro poxntes. Ovid, ina little picture which he draws of the daily work of a frugal peasant woman (“ parea colona”) and her hardy husband, represents the former sweeping out the cottage, setting hens on eggs, and gathering green mallows and white fungi :—
“ Aut virides malvas aut fungos colligit albos.’’— Fast. iv. 697.
Ovid has one more reference to fungi. With ourselves the expression “‘ mushroom origin or birth ” is and has long been proverbial to denote one of recent date, in allusion to the rapidity with which these things spring up in our fields in favourable weather ; with the people of Corinth, on the con- trary, a mushroom origin went back to the earliest period—
“ Hic vvo veteres mortalia primo Corpora vulgarunt pluvialibus edita fungis.”— Met. vii. 392-3.
“ Here (in Corinth) the ancients record that in the first age of the world mortal bodies were produced from fungi which spring up after rains.” Considering the licentious nature of the people and the extent to which the worship of Aphrodite prevailed in the city of Corinth, which in all probability was imtroduced by the Phoenicians, is it possible that the Phallus impudicus suggested the mythological tradition ?
Horace, in a well-known line, refers once only to fungi :— ““ Pratensibus optima fungis natura est ; aliis male creditur ;”’ “Fungi which grow in meadows are the best ; it isnot well to trust others”? (Sat. u. 4. 20). He is evidently alluding to those which grow in woods as those not to be trusted, being probably poisonous. ‘The meadow fungi may perhaps have been the common mushroom (A. campestris) and the fairy-ring champignon (A. oreades).
There is no doubt that the common mushroom is eaten at this day in Italy, and doubtless it was used by the ancient Romans. It isa fallacy of the late Dr. Badham to suppose that the A. cumpestris was prohibited by the market inspectors. In an interesting paper on the edible fungi of Italy, read at
26 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
the Woolhope Field-club meeting at Hereford last October, Mr. A. 8. Bicknell remarked :—“‘ Perhaps the most startling statement to be found in Badham’s book is the passage where he says that almost the only fungus condemned as poisonous in Rome is our common mushroom ; the words of Sanguinetti, his authority, are ‘The sale is absolutely prohibited of the so-called Prateroli.’ Evidently the question turns upon whether pratiolo means A. campestris. In Bologna, long a pontifical town, I saw mushrooms selling in the market for 40 c. the kil. (less than twopence per pound) ; but they are not abundant in Italy, for there are few meadows.”
Celsus, who lived about the time of Augustus and Tibe- rius, briefly alludes to unwholesome fungi (“fungi inu- tiles”) :—“ If any one shall have eaten noxious fungi let him eat radishes with vinegar and water (“ posca’’), or with salt and vinegar; these may be distinguished from the wholesome kinds by their appearance, and can be rendered serviceable by a mode of cooking them ; for if they have been boiled in oil or with the young twig of a pear-tree they become free from any bad quality’ (De Med. v. 27. 17).
Dioscorides is somewhat more diffuse on fungi than all other ancient writers except Pliny. He mentions a practice in his time for causing edible fungi to grow :—‘‘ Some people say that the bark of the white and the black poplar when cut into small pieces and scattered over dunged spaces will pro- duce edible fungi (wixntas édwdimovs) at all seasons” (Mat. Med. i. 109). Dioscorides appears to be the first writer who mentions the Agaricum, a word familiar to all mycologists under the name of agaric, though the original name stood for something quite different from the laminated agarics of modern systematists. Of the agaricum he writes :—
“‘Agaricum root is said to resemble the root of silphium (Assatcetida) ; it is not, however, thick in appearance, like silphium, but altogether slighter. One kind is male, the other female, which differs from the male in having straight fibres within (x«rnddvas edv@elas évtds) ; the male isround and homo- geneous in structure throughout; in taste both kinds are similar, at first sweet, then, after being swallowed, bitter. It grows in Agaria of Sarmatia; some people say that it is the root of a plant, others that it is produced in the trunks of trees that have become rotten like fungi (uvxnres) ; it grows also in Asia, viz. in Galatia and Cilicia, on cedar trees, but of a friable and weak nature. Its pro- perties are styptic and heat-producing, efficacious against colic («tpddovs) and sores, fractured limbs, and bruises from falls ; the dose is two obols weight with wine and honey to
eh
in Greek and Latin Authors. 27
those who have no fever ; in fever cases with honeyed water ; it is given in liver complaints, asthma, jaundice, dysentery, kidney diseases, where there is galing in passing water, in cases of hysteria, and to those of a sallow complexion in doses of one drachma; in cases of phthisis it is administered in raisin-wine, in affections of the spleen with honey and vinegar. By persons troubled with pains in the stomach and by those who suffer from acid eructations, the root is chewed and swal- lowed by itself without any liquid; it stops bleeding when taken with water in three-obol doses ; it is good for pains in the loins and joints, in epilepsy when taken with an equal quantity of honey and vinegar; it assists menstruation and relieves flatulence in women when taken with equal propor- tions of honey and vinegar. It prevents rigor if taken before the attack; in one- or two-drachm doses it acts as a purgative when taken with honeyed water; itis an antidote in poisons in one-drachm* doses with dilute wine. In three- obol doses with wine it is a relief in cases of bites and wounds caused by serpents. On the whole it is serviceable in all internal complaints when taken according to the age and strength of the patient; some should take it with water, others with wine, and others with vinegar and honey or with water and honey ” (De Med. ii. 1).
There seems to be no reasonable doubt that the agaricum of Dioscorides is the Polyporus officinalis of modern mycolo- gists, which grows on larches in subalpine places of Southern Europe. That which he calls the female is the Polyporus in question ; and probably under the name of male other Poly- port, as P. quercinus, are intended. ‘The expression that the female has straight fibres within suits the P. officinalis, while the bitter taste to which Dicscorides alludes is very marked in this species. An objection, however, to this identitication would seem to rest on his statement that the agaricum grows on cedars, whereas the P. officinalis is found on the larch alone; but it should be noted that instead of the reading émt Tov KéOpwv, Oribasius reads dévépwv. Sprengel, in his commentary on Dioscorides (/. c. vol. ii, p. 490), expresses wonder why agaricum should have been brought by the ancients from the remote Agarum of Sarmatia when the Romans at least could have procured it much more easily from Rhetia, Vindelicia, and Noricum, Danubian provinces of the Romans; “ still, even in our time,” he adds, ‘‘ agaricum is sent from the remote Ural Mountains, as well as from Syria, which Europeans consider to be of a most excellent
* A drachma=abo it 66 gr, avdp.; obol=?} of drachma.
28 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
kind.” We shall cease to wonder at the esteem in which this medical commodity was held by the ancients when procured from the promontory of Agarum when we reflect that this was the country of the Agari, a people skilled in medicine and said to have been able to cure wounds with serpent’s venom, and that some of them attended Mithridates the Great as phy- sicians. Hence no doubt the value attached to the fungus from such a renowned district. This once famous cure for all diseases has long since fallen into disuse, and Polyporus officinalis will not be found in our modern pharmacopceias ; whether herbalists still continue to employ it | know not.
On edible and poisonous fungi Dioscorides writes as follows :— Fungi (yv«ntes) have a twofold difference, for they are either good for food or poisonous (Bp@cipor 7 Oap- pcxol) ; their poisonous nature depends on various causes, for either such fungi grow amongst rusty nails or rotten rags, or near serpents’ holes, or on trees producing noxious fruits ; such have a thick coating of mucus, and when laid by after bemg gathered quickly become putrid ; but others, not of this kind, impart a sweet taste to sauces ; however, even these, if par- taken of too freely, are injurious, being indigestible, causing stricture or cholera. As a safeguard all should be eaten with a draught of olive-oil, or soda and lye-ashes with salt and vinegar, and a decoction of savory or marjoram, or they should be followed with a draught composed of bird’s dung and vinegar, or with a linctus of much honey ; for even the edible sorts are difficult of digestion and generally pass whole with the excrement’”’ (Mat. Med. iv. 83).
It need scarcely be observed that the different reasons here given for discriminating edible and poisonous fungi have no basis of fact; several perfectly wholesome fungi are covered with mucus. Gomphidius glutinosus and G. viscidus, for instance, are quite wholesome, and, I think, very good eating ; the same might be said of Boletus luteus, B. flavus, and many others. Their growing amongst rusty nails and rotten rags would probably not aftect their qualities in any way; while of course the idea that such kinds as grow near a serpent’s hole, which, as we have seen, Nicander long before makes mention of, is simply a bit of old Greek folk-lore which is quite in harmony with popular belief and prejudice. With regard to the antidotes in case of poisoning by fungi, vinegar is still employed to neutralize poisonous alkalies ;_ but perhaps the only safe remedy employed is an emetic.
Pliny has a good deal to say on fungi, and is the only ancient writer who has given so good an account of the Boletus of the Romans as to enable us to identity almost cer-
in Greek and Latin Authors. 29
tainly the species intended. The famous or infamous case of the death of the emperor Claudius by means of a dish of boleti in which some poison had been placed by his wife Agrippina was fresh in Pliny’s time, and afforded material for strong declamatory language. ‘The excessive luxury of the wealthy people of the Roman empire, especially their love of eating and drinking the most rare and costly dainties *, helped to bring fungi more and more forward asa possible incitement to the appetite and a savoury article of diet; but still people had been both purposely and accidentally poisoned by fungi, so they were regarded as “ ancipites,’’ questionable food indeed. The most interesting bit of fungus-talk which Pliny treats us to is the following : —
*¢ Among those things which are rashly eaten I shall rightly place bolet?, excellent food no doubt, but which have been brought into reproach by an unparalleled instance; for by their means poison was administered to the emperor Tiberius Claudius by his wife Agrippina, by which deed she inflicted another poison on the world, and especially on herself, in the person of her son Nero. Some of the poisonous kinds are easily known by a dilute red colour (‘diluto rubore’), a loathsome aspect, and internally by a livid hue; they have gaping cracks (‘rimosa stria’) and a pale lip round the margin. But these characters are not seen in certain kinds which are dry and like nitre, and which bear on their heads as it were spots formed from their own coating; for the earth first pro- duces a wrapper (‘volva’) and afterwards itself (¢. e. the boletus) within the volva, like the yolk in the egg; the young boletus with its volva is very good for food. As the boletus grows the volva is burst; by and by its substance is borne on the stem ; there are seldom two heads on one stem. Their origin is from mud and the acrid juices of moist earth, or frequently from those of acorn-bearing trees ; at first it appears as a kind of tenacious foam (‘ spuma lentior’), then as a mem- branous body ; afterwards the young boletus appears, as we have said. Noxious kinds must be entirely condemned ; for if there be near them a hobnail (‘caligaris clavus’) or a bit of rusty iron or a piece of rotten cloth, forthwith the plant, as it
* The Romans were not alone in their love of costly dainties; the Greeks shared with them in this respect. Plutarch speaks of the absurdity of indulging in meats and drinks simply because they are rare, costly, and accessible only to the rich, and instances among such articles of luxu- rious diet ‘sow’s udders, Italian mushrooms (yu«ytev Iradukov), Samian cakes, and snow from Egypt” (‘De tuenda Sanitate preecepta,’ vol. i. pt. 2, p. 491: ed. Wyttenbach). From this passage it appears that edible fungi were sometimes exported from Italy into Greece, which is very probable, for Greece to this day is poor in fungi.
30 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
grows, elaborates the foreign juice and flavour into poison ; and to discern the different kinds country-folk and those who gather them are alone able. Moreover they imbibe other noxious qualities besides; if, for instance, the hole of a venomous serpent be near, and the serpent breathe upon them as they open, because, from their natural affinity with poison- ous substances, they are readily disposed to imbibe such poison. Therefore one must notice the time before the ser- pents have retired into their holes. . . . The whole existence of a boletus from birth to death is not more than seven days ” (Nat. Hist. xxi. 22).
The boletus of the ancients, from the above description of it by Pliny, clearly belongs to the genus Amanita of moderu mycologists, and has nothing to do with the boletus as now applied to those fungi whose hymenium consists of tubes or pores. The genus Amanita, of which there are several British species, is characterized by the presence of a wrapper or volva, which at first envelopes the fungus, and which often remains in patches on the pileus, as mentioned by Pliny. Tradition has referred the species to A. cewsareus, so called as being that one which was instrumental in poisoning Claudius Cesar; and there is no reason to doubt that this is the famed boletus of the ancient Romans. Mrs Bicknell says it is now universally called wovolo, and is to be seen in the markets of Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Cremona, Bologna, and other Lombard cities from the middle of September to the middle of October. He usually had it cut up and stewed or fried in butter; at the commencement of the season it 1s worth about one shilling the pound. Lenz gives as the modern Italian names of this fungus, wovolo, uovolo ordinario, uovolo commune, uovolo rancio (orange-coloured) ; at Verona, fongo ovo, fongo bolado, and bole, in which two latter instances the ancient Roman name still survives, while the ordinary name of wovolo reminds one ot Pliny’s words “ like the yolk in the egg.” In lib. xvi. cap. 8, Pliny, among the various products of the oak, mentions boleti and suill’, which he calls the most recently discovered stimulants for the appetite (“ gule novis- sima irritamenta”’), as growing around their roots; he says the quercus (Y. robur ?) produces the best kinds, and that the robur (Q. robur, var. ?), cypress, and pine yield noxious ones. From this it would appear that boleti (A. cesareus) were not much used as food before the time of the empire ; Joletus as a Latin name occurs only im the writings of Pliny, Juvenal, and Martial, and the Greek BwdAérns does not occur before the time ot Galen (A.p. 130); the noxious kinds of boleti may refer to A. muscarius or A, phalloides, but this is mere conjecture ;
ae
in Greek and Latin Authors. 31
while the assertion that certain trees produce them is probably a mere popular notion of his time. Lenz gives wovolo malefico as one of the modern Italian names of A. muscarius. The suilli will be discussed by and by. Pliny distinguishes between boleti and fungi:—“ The nature of fungi is more viscid than that of boleti; there are many kinds, and they originate only from the slimy moisture of trees. The safest are those which have a red skin, but of a darker hue than occurs in boleti; the next best are the white kind, with head-stems remarkable for their resemblance to the conical caps of the Flamens (‘ apice Flaminis’); and thirdly there is the kind called sud’, very convenient for poisoning. Lately they have killed whole families and all the guests at a ban- quet, as, for instance, Anneus Serenus, the prefect of Nero’s guard, together with the tribunes and centurions. What so great pleasure can there be in doubtful food? Some persons have discriminated the kinds of fungi from the kinds of trees on which they grow, saying that the good kinds are found on the fig, the birch, and gummiferous trees, we that the noxious kinds grow on the beech, oak (robur), or cypress as aforesaid.
“¢ But who will give security when these things are exposed for sale in the markets? All the poisonous fungi have a livid colour, while, on the other hand, a reason for suspecting poison will be absent from those kinds which grow on trees which resemble the fig. We have already spoken of remedies against fungus-poisoning ; we will add a few more remarks, for even in these products there are medicinal properties. Glaucias thinks that bolet’ are good for the stomach ; swéll
? are dried and hung up, being transfixed with a rush, as in
5
those which come from Bithynia. These are good as a remedy in fluxes from the bowels, which are called rheuma- tismi, and for fleshy excrescences of the anus, which they diminish and in time remove; they remove freckles (‘ lenti- gines’) and blemishes on women’s faces; a healing lotion also is made of them, as of lead, for sore eyes; soaked in water they are applied as a salve to foul ulcers and eruptions of the head and to bites inflicted by dogs.
“¢T will now make some general observations on the cooking of fungi, because this is the only food which dainty volup- tuaries themselves prepare with their own hands, and thus, as it were, by anticipation feed on them, using amber knives and silver service. ‘hose kinds which remain hard after cooking are injurious, while those which admit of being thoroughly well cooked when eaten with saltpetre are harmless; they are rendered more safe still if they are cooked with meat (‘cum carne cocti’) or with pear-stalks ; indeed it is good to
32 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
eat pears immediately after fungi. Vinegar being of a nature contrary to them neutralizes their dangerous qualities. All these products appear after showers” (xxi. 23).
Pliny mentions three different kinds of fungi which he con- siders to be the best for food; but identification is difficult owing to want of data. Those which Pliny calls “ tutissimi quirabent callo minus dilutorubore quam boleti” may possibly be Russula alutacea, as Lenz conjectures; in Verona he says this russula is still called fungo rossetto, and in Italy generally rossola buona di gambo lungo, “the good long-stemmed red fungus,” which is still eaten in Italy ; but as Pliny gives us no character except that of colour, which in the genus Russula is very variable, it is evident we cannot say what the species is. There is something more to guide us in Pliny’s second-best kind, viz. “the white fungi whose head-stems are similar in form to the caps of the Flamens.” Most of the forms of this cap (apex) as shown on coins or bas-reliefs of the Roman emperors are of a conical or cylindrical form, and remind one of the cylindrical pileus of the very excellent Coprinus co- matus before it expands and deliquesces ; at least I know of no other edible fungus that so much resembles the figures of these priestly caps. Badham says that C. comatus is “ largely eaten”? about Lucca; but this species is not named by Vitta- dini nor was it seen by Mr. Bicknell in the Italian markets. The suil/us which we find mentioned by Martial—
“ Sunt tibi boleti: fungos ego sumo suillos.”—£p, i. 60—
in an epigram, in which he complains to Ponticus that when invited to dinner there were not set before him the choicest dainties, is generally supposed to be the Boletus edulis of modern mycologists. Its present Italian name of porerno, bole porcin, answers to the old Latin name ot swil/us, which has something to do with “swine’”’*. ‘Tradition has appa-
* The suillus in all probability was so called because swine were fond of it. Berkeley states that pigs devour both truffles and boleti as B. edulis. Whether the modern English pig of the farmyard will eat boleti I know not; but by the semi-wild swine of the ancient Romans boleti were probably eagerly devoured. Various boleti and agarics often bear the impress of the teeth of small Rodentia, as the squirrel and the rab- bit, which latter animal I know will eat the A. rubescens. Cats are sometimes fond of fungi; I have a white Persian cat which I have tried with the following species of edible fungi, all of which it eats with evident relish :—Aygaricus pratensis (mushroom), A. melleus, A. persona- tus, A. virgineus (Hygrophorus), A. oreades, A. comatus, A. butyraceus, Boletus edulis and scaber, Hydnum repandum. Some known unwholesome and poisonous kinds, as A. semzglobatus, A, eruginosus, A, muscarius, some of the Cortinarii, Boletus luridus, &c., the cat refuses. Another of my
—o
in Greek and Latin Authors. 33
rently identified the species as the B. edulis. Mr. Bicknell, who travelled in North Italy this last autumn, says this fun- gus is the one most commonly sold in Italy at present. In the market of Bergamo it was sold at 40 c. per pound; at Brescia it was ten cents dearer. In Florence and Parma there was no other fungus. He adds that when cooked they are usually filled with bread-crumbs, and that they may be bought in almost any grocer’s shop. It is probable that the ancient sw7//us included, besides B. edulis, B. scaber, which is also very common in the Italian markets and is also known by the name of porcinello, or “ the little-pig fungus.”
The suillus has an historical interest attaching to it similar to that which attaches itself to the boletus. Pliny calls it a genus ‘‘ yenenis accommodatissimum,” and refers to the case of the poisoning of Anneus Serenus and a whole lot of guests ; it is probable that the suillus was the medium for introducing some poison of a foreign nature into the dish in which it appeared at table *, just as was the case with the boletus which poisoned Claudius Cesar. Anneus Serenus was an intimate friend of Seneca, and his death is referred to in one of the moralist’s epistles (Ep. 63) in very touching language; but he does not say a word about the cause of his friend’s death. ‘Tacitus speaks of the part which Serenus played in regard to Nero’s passion for a freedwoman named Acte, which enraged Agrippina and filled her with burning hatred. Serenus took Nero’s part. Tacitus says nothing about the death of Serenus. ‘This rests on the sole authority of Pliny; but seeing that Agrippina had already poisoned her husband Claudius, it is quite probable that she resorted to a similar mode of getting rid of Serenus and the tribunes, and that she introduced poison into a dish of suilli or Boletus edulis. ‘The picture which Pliny sarcastically draws of the voluptuaries of the day is very graphic. Amber knives and silver service alone were good enough for preparing or setting on table these fungi, the preparation of which by the hands of the rich magnates themselves afforded an anticipatory feast of the dainties !
If the fashion of eating these fungi arose, as Pliny seems to say, im the time of the Roman emperors, many of whom were always eager for any fresh introduction to the luxuries of
cats (common variety) refuses all mushrooms and other fungi, and seems to say to its Persian companion “ Persicos odi, puer, apparatus,” when such “ apparatus ” is a fungus.
* Badham considers that this case of poisoning was accidental; I inter- pret Pliny’s account as intimating determined purpose.
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xv. 3
34 Rev. W. Houghton’s Noétces of Fungi
the table, it soon developed into something like a mania among the rich ; a passion tor truffles and boleti betokened no good in the youth of those days. Hence Juvenal writes :—
“ Nec melius de se cuiquam sperare propinquo Concedet juvenis, qui radere tubera terre, Boletum condire...... didicit.”—Sat. xiv. 6-8.
‘Nor will that youth allow any relative to hope better of him who has learnt to peel truffles and to pickle boleti.”” The great esteem in which boleti were held is shown by Martial in his ‘Epigrams.’ Special vessels for cooking boleti were in use called doletarta, and should not be applied to baser pur- poses ; hence one of these cooking utensils 1s represented as bewailing its changed lot in the functions of the Roman kitchen :—
“Cum mihi boleti dederint tam nobile nomen, Prototomis (pudet heu) servio cauliculis.”—£p. xiv. 101.
“ Although boleti have given me so noble a name, I am now used, I am ashamed to say, for Brussels sprouts.”
Again, it was safer to send a messenger with gold or silver &e. than to send him with boleti, because he would probably have them cooked and eat them on the way * :—
“ Argentum atque aurum facile est, lenamque togamque Mittere: boletos mittere difficile est.”—£p. xiii. 48.
But to return to Pliny: of the Agaricum he says :—‘ The acorn-producing trees of the Gallic provinces more particu- larly produce agaricum ; it is a white fungus with strong odour, useful as an antidote ; it grows on the tops of trees and shines at night, by which fact its presence is known and it is gathered” (xvi. 8). This is the Polyporus officinalis of which Dioscorides speaks. I do not know whether luminosity has been observed in this fungus; but it is well known that certain fungi, notably the Pleurotus olearius, which grows on olive and other trees in the south of Europe, emits phospho- yescent light, and perhaps Polyporus officinalis or the decayed wood on which it grows may occasionally exhibit the same phenomenon. The German tinder or amadou of commerce at present prepared from the pileus of Polyporus fomentarius, was not unknown to the ancient Romans, though it is not stated whether it was steeped in a solution of saltpetre as at present. Pliny thus speaks of obtaining fire from wood :—
* Or because the possessor of such delicacies would rather keep them himself than send them to a friend, t
in Greek and Latin Authors. 35
“One piece of wood is rubbed against another, and the fric- tion sets them on fire, which is augmented by dry tinder (‘‘aridi fomitis”’), especially by that of fungi and leaves ” (xvi. 40). The fungus was probably steeped in sulphur, sulphur-matches being known to the Romans under the name of sulfurata ramenta or sulfurata (cf. Mart. Ep. x. 3, and i. 42).
Pliny mentions the Agaricum again, in cap. xxv. 9, as growing as a fungus “on trees round the Bosphorus: it is of white colour; it is given in four-obol doses mixed with two eyathi of honey and vinegar. That which grows in Gaul is considered an inferior kind. The male is thicker and more bitter than the female; it cures headaches: the female, which is of looser texture, is at first sweet to the taste and as it is swallowed it leaves a bitter taste.’ This is nothing more than an abridgment of what Dioscorides has said. Of its use in medicine Dr. Badham writes :—“ The Polyporus laricis [P. officinalis], the so-called Agaric of pharmacy, is a power- ful but most uncertain medicine, and has been recommended in consumption. I once administered a few grains of it in this disease, when violent pains and hypercatharsis super- vened, which lasted for several hours. MM. B. Lagrange and Braconnot found it to contain a large quantity of acrid resin, to which it no doubt owes its hypercathartic properties. To judge from this single case, which, however, tallies with the experience of others, I should say that this fungus was in medicine to be looked upon as a very suspicious ally” (‘ Es- culent Funguses,’ p. 26).
Pliny (xix. 3) mentions fungi known as pezice by the Greeks; they grow without root or stalk. The Greek forms of méfis, vos and wé{iE, uxos occur in Theophrastus and Athe- neus. ‘The former says nothing whatever about the wévs, except that it has no root; but Athenwus quotes Theophras- tus as saying that the mégis, together with the ddvov, wens, and yepaveov, has a smooth skin, Aew Prova. Lenz, in a footnote (Botanik der alt. Gr. u. R. p. 755), writes :— The més of ‘Pheophrastus and the pezica of Pliny are without doubt the bovista (‘die Boviste’).”’ He compares the modern Italian name vescza, both in sound and meaning, with the Greek wé&is. The AewProva of Theophrastus would seem to point to the smooth-skinned Lycoperdon giganteum.
Juvenal’s notices of fungi are chiefly confined to the boletus which was instrumental in poisoning Claudius Cesar, viz. the Amanita Cesarea of modern mycologists ; he calls all other fungi “ ancipites ”” :—
3%
36 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
“ Vilibus ancipites fungi ponentur amicis, Boletus domino; sed qualem Claudius edit Ante illum uxoris, post quem nil amplius edit.”"—Sat. v. 146.
“ Doubtful fungi shall be served to his clients, the boletus to the lordly patron; but such a one as Claudius ate before that one which his wife gave him, after which he ate nothing more.” Again in Sat. vi. 619 :-—
“Minus ergo nocens erit Agrippinee Boletus: siquidem unius preecordia pressit Ille senis, tremulumque caput descendere jussit In coelum, et longam manantia labra salivam.”
“ Therefore Agrippina’s boletus will be less hurtful (than the love potions given by Ceesonia to Caligula), for it pressed the vitals of only one old man and commanded his trembling head to descend to heaven and his lips flowing with long streams of saliva.” The expression here used by Juvenal of ‘descendere in ccelum”’ is said sarcastically ; it conveys the idea of the usual apotheosis of the deceased to the heavens above; but implies also, by the exact contrary expression, that he went down to his proper abode in the infernal regions. Seneca, in his play ‘ De morte Claudi Ceesaris,’ makes use of similar language: ‘‘ Posteaquam Claudius in ccelum de- scendit.” According to Dion Cassius, Seneca called this satirical play Apocolocyntosis, 1. e. ‘* Pumpkinification,” from do, “set apart for,” KodocuvGa, “a pumpkin;” in- stead of using the term a7roéwous, “ deification,” ‘“ set apart for the society of the gods,” Seneca travesties this name, using instead that of avroxoNoxvvtwors 3 a pumpkin, in Latin cucurbita, being sometimes taken to represent ‘fa man of weak intellect,” ‘a fool,” which the Emperor Claudius was generally supposed to be. There is not a word, however, in this so-called play (“‘ ludus ”’) which has reference to this idea of a pumpkin denoting a fool, nor does the term apocolocyn- tosis occur once in this curious diatribe of the Roman philo- sopher*. ‘There is no allusion to the means employed by
* This ‘Ludus de Morte Cl. Cesaris’ is full of sarcastically expressed hatred of Claudius, who had rendered himself an object of loathing to the people generally and to Seneca in particular, who had been exiled to Corsica by Claudius for supposed intrigues with Julia, the emperor’s niece ; it appears to have been written with a view to please Nero and Agrippina. The ‘Ludus’ is written in pr@e, with occasional insertions of verses in the heroic and iambic metre; it has but little merit and the text is often corrupt. Claudius is represented as being received after death into the presence of the gods; the question arises among them whether he is a fit person for their company. A council of gods is held,
and the matter is debated. Divus Augustus is strongly opposed to Claudius on account of his atrocities and murders, and Mercury takes
an Greek and Latin Authors. 5/i
Agrippina of getting rid of Claudius; no fungus, no boletus, is once mentioned or hinted at. I noticed above that Seneca, in his lamentation over his deceased friend Anneus Serenus (Ep. 63), says nothing of his death by a poisoned dish of boleti, of which Pliny speaks. In both cases the absence of any remarks about the cause of the death of Serenus and of Claudius Cesar is natural; it is notorious that Seneca was privy to Agrippina’s design to poison the emperor, and so he carefully avoided the use of the word boletus, fungus, or suillus.
The accounts which have come down to us generally agree that the boletus was the vehicle in which the poison was administered to the emperor, although at the time various stories were told as to where and by whom poison was given. Suetonius and Tacitus both speak of medicated boleti, poison poured into a dish of boleti. The poison was believed by some to have been put into the dish by Agrippina’s own hands. Tacitus says it was prepared by Locusta. Nero, the successor of Claudius, was of course privy to the plot, and even had the impudence to make no secret of the mode of poisoning, for he used to commend in a Greek proverb boleti as food of the gods (@pa@ma Pedy), sarcastically referring to the apotheosis of Claudius.
The boletus was such a relished dainty with the Kmperor Tiberius that, according to Suetonius, he presented a man of the name of Asellius Sabinus with 200,000 sesterces for composing a dialogue in which boleti, beccaficos, oysters, and thrushes were supposed to contend for the honour of being considered the best food (Suet. Tib. cap. xli.). Martial (Ep. i. 21) represents a certain host, Cecilianus, inviting a number of guests to dinner, and eating all the boleti himself :—
“ Dic mihi quis furor est ? turba spectante vocata, Solus boletos, Ceeciliane, voras. Quid dignum tanto tibi ventre, gulaque precabor ? Boletum, qualem Claudius edit, edas.” “ What brutishness is this? When friends you treat, They looking on, alone you mushrooms eat. What on such gluttony shall I implore ? May’st Claudius’ mushroom eat, and ne’er eat more !”
him by the neck and conducts him out of heaven down to the infernal regions, where he is punished in a Sisyphian-like way. He has to throw dice out of a perforated box, according to the sentence pronounced by ARacus :—“ Tum Aacus jubet illum alea ludere pertuso fritillo; et jam coeperat fugientes semper tesseras queerere, et mihil proficere. “Sic cum jam summi tanguntur culmina montis Inrita Sisyphio volvuntur pondera collo.
38 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
Galen, the celebrated physician of Pergamus (born A.D, 130), seems to have regarded fungi generally as unwholesome diet, but the boletus as tolerably good and to be trusted, though even to the boletus (BwAitns) he does not ascribe very tasty qualities. ‘ Of fungi (uwéxns) the Bwrérns, when well boiled, must be counted among insipid things; it is generally eaten with various kinds of spices, as is done with other insipid food. These fungi, after being eaten in large quantities, yield cold, clammy, noxious juices as their nourishing quanti- ties (breywatwdns 8 éotiv 7 €& avTev Tpohy, Kal SiAov OTL kai ruypd, Kav TAEovaty Tis ev adTois Kaxdxupos) ; the boleti are the most harmless and after them the amanite (dmavirat) ; as for the rest, it is far safer to have nothing whatever to do with them (un dws amtecGar), because many persons have been poisoned by them... . I myself know the case of a man who ate a quantity of these badly cooked boleti, supposed to be wholesome, and was afterwards troubled with severe pains in the stomach, with difficulty of breathing, faintness (Aewrowvyjcavta), and cold sweats, and who was with difficulty saved by taking such remedies as are able to dissi- pate inspissated juices, such as vinegar and honey, either
co) alone or with hyssop and origanum suficiently boiled; the
man partook of this remedy sprinkled with soda, and vomited up the fungi which he had eaten” (De aliment. facult. lib. 11. cap. 69).
Again, Galen remarks in his treatise ‘ De probis pravisque alimentorum succis ’:— Of all such kinds of food fungi have the coldest, most viscid, and thickest juice ; however, among them the boleti alone have never been known to cause any one’s death; still, to some persons, even they cause cholera and indigestion ..... The best proof of the un- wholesomeness of a fungus is the impossibility of drying and preserving it” (caps. iv., v., vol. vi. pp. 770, 785, ed. Kiihn).
Epileptic patients must abstain from all bad food, such as fungi (wins), turnips, and other roots (Pro puero epilept. consilium, p. 368, ed. Kihn). The curious emetic which first appears in Nicander was employed sometimes by Galen. “YT have heard of a physician im Mysia who administered fowl’s dung to persons suffering from fungus-poisoning, and I have often myself experimented with this remedy. I have used finely powdered dung mixed with water or with honey and vinegar. The patients immediately on drinking this mixture vomited and recovered. One must observe that the dung of a fowl at liberty is more efficacious than that of one in confinement” (Simpl. Med. p. 303, ed. Kiihn).
in Greek and Latin Authors. 39
ae Physicians (/sclapiade) recommend the following reme- dies for fungus-poisoning : raw radishes in quantities, un- mixed wine, *lye- -ashes of the vine, a mixture of soda and vinegar, ashes of burnt lees of wine mixed with water, wormwood and vinegar, rue either with vinegar or alone (De antid. 2.7, p. 140, ed. Ktihn). Athenzeus (A.D. 230), of course, has some chatty conversation about fungi, and gives quotations from authors whose works are not extant now. Most fungi require moist ground, and so Aristias says, ‘* The stony plain stretches itself out (in vain) for fungi.” Poliochus mentions, among other food, roasted fungi—ra) puKNS TES evioT @mTTaTO, “and sometimes some fungus would be roasted.”
Antiphanes seems to have considered fungi hazardous tood. “Who of us knows the future, what is fated for each of our friends to suffer, but quickly take and roast these two fungi gathered from the ilex.”” Cephisodorus quotes from the Pro- verbs of Antiphanes: “ For I, if I eat any of your dishes, think that I am eating raw fungi or sour apples, or other choking food” (ev Tumviyes Bpaua =). Atheneeus continues, Fungi are earth-produced (ynyevets), and a few of them are good to eat; but most produce a choking sensation, hence Kpi- charmus joking says, ‘ You will be parched and choked as if by fungi.’ Nicander mentions in his ‘ Georgics’ [a lost work] some kinds that are deadly, and says that fearful calamities arise from eating from the olive, the ilex, and the oak, clammy choking lumps of fungi. He says moreover [in order to produce fungi artificially], bury the stump of a fig-tree in the ground with dung and moisten it with spring w ater ; at the bottom harmless fungi will grow, of which you must not cut off from the root anything that is ot mferior quality. And he says again, ‘and then the fungi called amanite: you may See and Ephippus says, ‘ that il may choke you as fungi
Accidental poisoning by fungi was probably more common among the ancients than with us, who, as a rule, eat no single species except the common mushroom. [rom what has been said it is clear that the ancients ate various kinds, though often with hesitation and caution ; accidental poisoning pro- bably occasionally occurred from gathering the wholesome field-fungi in the dusk of the evening, as with us; the A. semiglobatus, known to be highly poisonous, grows frequently in the fields in close proximity to A. campestris, and a few of them carelessly mixed with the edible sorts would produce dangerous effects; or people may have been falsely allured into “security by the smell and appearance of some particular
40 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungt
kind, as, for instance, the very poisonous A. (Amanita) vernus. According to Eparchides (apud Atheneus), when Euripides was on a visit at Icarus, a certain woman, with two full-grown sons and an unmarried daughter, gathered some fungi from the fields, and all the family partook of them and died. Whereupon the poet made the following epigram upon them :— °Q rov aynpavtoy Todov aibepos HALE TELVOY, dip’ ides Todd’ dupate mpdabe rabos ; pntépa rapbevixny Te Kopny Suraovs Te Tvvaipous ev TavT@ heyyer porpioi@ pOunevovs.
“QO Sun, that cleavest the undying vault of heaven, hast thou ever before seen such a calamity as this ?—a mother and maiden daughter and two sons destroyed by pitiless fate in one day ?”
With a view probably to destroy any dangerous properties it was sometimes recommended that they should be boiled ; thus Diocles, in his first book on ‘ Wholesomes,’ says, “Certain things which grow wild, as beet, mallow, sorrel, nettles, orach, bulbs, déva (truffles), and fungi (wv«ns), should be boiled.”’
Diphilus, a physician who lived about the beginning of the third century B.c., and who wrote a book on ‘ Diet suit- able for persons in good and bad health,’ says that “ fungi (uvKntes) are of good taste, and pass easily through the bowels, and are nourishing ;”’ but still “ that they cause indi- gestion and flatulence, especially those from the isle of Ceos ; many, however, cause death: the wholesome kinds appear to be those which are easily peeled, are smooth and readily broken, such as grow on elms and pines; the unwholesome kinds are black, livid, and hard, and such as remain hard after boiling; such when eaten produce deadly effects. A remedy for this poison is a draught of honey and water, or honey and vinegar, or soda and vinegar; after the draught the patient should vomit. It is therefore always desirable to dress fungi with vinegar, or honey and vinegar, or with honey and salt, by which means the choking properties are destroyed.” Athenzus adds, ‘¢ Theophrastus, in his ‘Treatise on Plants, writes, ‘ Plants of this kind grow both under the ground and on the surface, such as those which some people call wéGes, which grow together with fungi (wvx«ns), tor these are without roots; while the wv«ns has at the beginning of its attachment to the ground a stalk of some length, from which roots [the mycelium] extend themselves. Theophrastus says also, that in the sea around the Pillars of Hercules, where there is much water, fungi are produced close to the sea, which people say have been turned into stone by the
ent acepinas
in Greek and Latin Authors. Al
sun.” It is evident that he is speaking of the coral madre- pores, the Agaricia (Lamouroux), or mushroom madrepore, from the resemblance to the fungus, or agaric with its laminated gills, which the people imagine to be a petrified fungus. It is curious to note that this reference to the madrepore is the only indication that the ancients noticed the beautiful form of the laminated hymenium of the modern genus Agaricus ; the swillus is doubtless the Boletus edulis; but there is no notice of the porous hymenium which characterizes the genus in any of the ancient authors.
Athenzus quotes one more writer, Phanias, who wrote a book on plants: ‘f Some kinds produce neither bloom nor any trace of generation by buds or by seeds, such as the puns, vdvov, TTepis (fern), and édAvé ” (Deipnosoph. i. 56-59).
Between the time of Atheneeus (A.D. 230) and the Greek compilation known as ‘ Geoponica’ (yf “ the earth,” and arovos “Jabour’’) there is an interval of some hundreds of years. Neither the author nor the date of this work, which contains interesting matter on precepts relating to rural economy, is positive ely known. The date may be about a.p. 900. It is curious to note that there is not a single reference to any kind of fungus-plant in the works of the Roman writers on husbandry (‘scriptores rei rusticee”’?). In the ‘Geoponica,’ xii. 17. 8, it is said that if any one has eaten a poisonous boletus (SwAttns havros), he must take as a remedy the juice of cabbage. The ‘‘many-coated cabbage’? was recom- mended by Nicander, perhaps a thousand years before, and probably the prescription continued more or less in vogue for so many years. In another place (Geop. xiv. 24) myrtle- berries are recommended as an excellent remedy against poisonous fungi (@avatomo.os pwiKns).
“In order to make fungi grow one must saw off the stump of a black poplar and pour sour dough dissolved in water upon the cut-off pieces. Black-poplar fungi soon appear ; but if you would have fungi to grow from the ground you must select a spot of light soil on a hill where reeds grow ; there you must collect together twigs and other inflammable materials, and set all on fire just before rain is expected; if the rain does not come you must artificially sprinkle the spot with pure water, but the fungi thus produced are of inferior quality.” (Geopon. Xi. 41.)
One is here reminded of what Dr. Badham himself wit- nessed at Naples. Here is his account :—“ A third fungus, which we have the means of producing ad (bitum, is that which sprouts from the pollard head of the black poplar (Populus nigra, var. Neapolitana). ‘These heads it is usual
42 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungt
to remove at the latter end of autumn, as soon as the vintage is over, and thus marriage with the vine is annulled; hun- dreds of such heads are then cut and transported to different parts ; they are abundantly watered during the first month, and in a short time produce that truly delicate fungus Aga- ricus caudicinus, the Pioppint, which during the autumn of the year make the greatest show in many of the Italian market-places. These pollard blocks continue to bear for from twelve to fourteen years. I saw a row of them in the Botanic Garden at Naples, which, after this period, were still productive, though less frequently, and of few agarics at acrop” (Escul. Fung. p. 50). The A. caudicinus here mentioned is perhaps the A. egerita of Fries (Kpicr. p. 219, 2nd edit.), the Champ. du peuplier of Paul. p. 801; of white ilesh and pleasant odour; but the fungus appears to have been confused with the A. melleus (“Stockschwamm” of the Germans) and the A. (Pholiota) mutabilis.
Mr. Bicknell throws doubt on Dr. Badham’s story; he says, ‘I have never seen either A. melleus or Ph. mutabitis for sale, neither do I expect [ shall, if I have to wait till the poplar heads are amputated ”’*. ‘These poplar fungi, whatever be the species, have been known from the times of Dioscorides, through that of the compiler of the ‘ Geoponica,’ until this day. With respect to what is stated in the ‘ Geoponica,’ about getting fungi to grow on spots where wood has been burnt, every fungus-collector knows how prone certain kinds are to grow on charcoal-rings where wood has been burnt.
Truffles.
The Greek name for a trufile is tdvov, a word which has several times occurred in the course of this paper. The Latin name is tuber, which mycologists still retain. Linnus, without the slightest reason, appropriated the old Greek word for a trufile, and made it into a genus (Hydnum), to denote the fungi which have an awl-shaped hymenium; and this unfortunately selected word retains this meaning to this day. Equally unfortunate is the use of the word Agaricus by Lin- neus to designate fungi whose fruit-bearing surface or hyme- nium is lamellose; and the same may be said of the appli- cation of the boletus of the ancients, which, as we have seen,
* Fries says that the “Stockschwamm” of the Germans is not A. mutabilis, but A. melleus (Epic. p. 225, 2nd edit.) ; but the figure which Scheffer (pl. ix.) gives of the Stockschwamm of the Bavarians is clearly A. (Pholota) mutabilis. Lenz, without hesitation, refers the poplar-fungus to A. mutabiiis, Scheeff., and says that the people, to this day, water the old stumps, and that the fungus is known in Italy as the Jamigliola buona (Botanik, p. 764, note). i
ns Sc any i al
th NAAR Ae AE ATED iS
in Greek and Latin Authors. 43
is a lamellose agaric at first enclosed in a volva, to denote fungi whose hymenium consists of tubes or pores.
But to return to the ddvor. Theophrastus (1. 6 » § 9) speaks of the ddvoy which some call dexeov, and the oviyyov and other such subterranean things, as having no root. In 1. 6, § 13, he says, the ddvov is sometimes called picv, and is very sweet with a fleshy odour; that in Thrace it is called irov. ‘‘ With regard to these things, peculiar beliefs are held, for they say that they are produced during autumn rains, and thunderstorms especially, which are the main reason of their growing, and that they do not last more than a year, and are best for food in the spring. Some think they are produced from seed, because those which grow on the shore of the Mityleneaus only appear after floods, which bring down the seed from Tiara where many véva are found. They grow on the shore where there is much sand. ‘They are found around Lampsacum of Abarnis, and in Alopeconnesus (Asia), and in Elis.”
Dioscorides calls the édvov a root, and says it is roundish, without leaves and stem, inclining to yellow; that it is dug out of the ground in the spring, ‘and is eaten either raw or cooked ’ ” (Mat. Med. u. 174).
With respect to the Greek words ddvov, daytov andthe Thra- cian i7oy, and the piov, the name of the plant near Cyrene, there is no clear etymology forthcoming. If oédvoy is another form of ddvoy, according to Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon (but I can find no authority for its use in Theophrastus), then one would naturally refer the name to o(dé@ or oidave, % to swell,” and the etymology would be sufficiently exact, answering ’to the Latin’ tuber. Aétius and later Greek writers use the word irvov for the truffle. Sibthorpe found the names %dves and ixvos to denote this fungus in Greece, and Heldreich (‘ Die Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands,’ p. 2) gives bdavoy or bdvoy for the Zuber cibarium in Peloponnesus, ‘and Xorporywpa in Crete, adding that truffles occur in woody places in Greece, but are not much sought after. According to the last-named autho- rity the ancient Greek name doyvov for a trufile is now used for a polyporus or a fungus generally, under the form of toxa, Pelasg. eské, ésha. The piov must remain quite explained. Another Greek name is apparently used by Theophrastus to signify a truffle, viz «epavyov, but given by Athenzeus, who is quoting ‘Theophrastus, as yepavetov. I suspect xepavviov is the proper reading, and that it reters to the popular idea that such plants appeared chieily after thunderstorms.
The truffle was a source of wonder to Pliny, who con- sidered it one of the marvels of nature. “ Since we have
44 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fung?
begun to speak of these marvels we shall follow them in order. Among the most wonderful of all things is the fact that any- thing can spring up and live without a root. ‘These are called trufiles (tubera) ; they are surrounded on all sides by earth, and are supported by no fibres or hair-like root-threads (capellamentis) ; nor does the place in which they are pro- duced swell out into any protuberance or present any fissure ; they do not adhere to the earth; they are surrounded by a bark, so that one cannot say they are altogether composed of earth, but are a kind of earthy concretion; they generally grow in dry sandy places which are overgrown with shrubs ; in size they are often as large as quinces and weigh as much asa pound. ‘There are two kinds: one is sandy and injures the teeth, the other is without any foreign matter (s¢ncera) ; they are distinguished by their colours being red, or black, or white within; those of Africa are most esteemed. Now, whether this imperfection of the earth (vdt¢wm terre)—for it cannot be said to be anything else—grows, or whether it has at once assumed its full globular size, whether it lives or not, are questions which I think cannot easily be explained. In their being lable to become rotten these things resemble wood. The following accident happened a few years ago to Lartius Licinius, a person of preetorian rank, and a minister of justice at Carthage, in Spain, as I myself know: he was biting a trufile and a denarius inside it bent his front teeth, from which circumstance it is evident that this natural pro- duction of the soil had originally assumed a globular shape, as is the case with those things which grow of themselves and are not able to arise from seed. Of a similar nature is that which is produced in the province of Cyrenaica called ‘misy ;’ it is noted for the sweetness of its smell and flavour, and is more fleshy than the other kinds mentioned ; that which is called ‘ceraunium,’ in Thrace, is of a similar nature”’ (xix.3). Pliny then adds what has been already given from Theophrastus, mentioning the kind of fungi known by the Greeks as “ pezice,”’ which have no root nor stalk.
We are not anywhere informed whether dogs or pigs were ever employed in ancient times as aids in finding truffles. Dr. Badham refers to Dioscorides as stating that pigs dig up trufiles in spring; but Dioscorides nowhere mentions pigs ; he says simply that these products were dug up in the spring ; had either of these animals been ever used in truffle-hunting we should most likely have had a notice to this effect amongst the fungus literature of the classical authors. Atheneus quotes a few words from Pamphilus about a certain grass called vdvodvdAdov, which was supposed to grow above the truffle and which indicated its presence (Athenzus, 11. 60).
—
in Greek and Latin Authors. 45
Sprengel, in his commentary on Dioscorides (ii. p. 472), says that truffles are frequent in Laconia, and, referring to Walpole’s Memoirs, states that the divining-rod used to be employed in their search. The story about the hydnophyllum is, of course, a mere fancy.
That thunder exercised some peculiar power in producing truffles was an opinion current among the ancients, and Plutarch has given us quite a long and curious dissertation in his ‘ Symposiacs ’ (book iv.) on the question, dva 7/ Ta vdva doxet TH Bpovth yiveoOa, ‘ Why trufiles are thought to be produced by thunder.” Ata certain supper in Elis, where, as we have seen, large truffles were found, some of extraordi- nary size were set on the table; many of the guests seemed to wonder, whereupon some individual jokingly referred to the thunderstorms which had lately happened as being the cause of their appearance, meaning to deride the popular opinion as absurd; whereupon Agemachus, the worthy host, prayed the company not to conclude a thing was incredible be- cause it was strange and wonderful, ‘“ for this ridiculous bulb, which has become quite a proverb for absurdity, does not escape the lightning on account of its small size, but because it has a property the exact opposite to it, just as the fig-tree and the skin of the sea-calf, as they say, and that of the hyena have, with which things sailors clothe the ends of their sailyards.” After a little more dinner-talk, in which it was satisfactorily proved that truffles grow by means of a certain generating fluid contained in the thunder (vdwp yovipor), which, being mixed with heat, pierces into the earth, turning and rolling it round, and produces these tubers; just as cer- tain tumours called glands arise in the human body from some bloody humour or other; and that trufiles do not resemble plants, are not nourished by rain, and have neither root nor sprout, but are quite free in the ground, and that, in conse- quence, they have the nature of earth which has been altered and changed in substance; after all this it was determined to change the subject of conversation from trufles, “ lest,” it is added, “‘ that happen to us which once befell the painter Androcydes, for when he painted the gulf Scylla he repre- sented the fishes with more artistic effect than anything else, so that people thought he cared more for the fishes than for his art; im like manner they will say of us, that we have discoursed about the origin of trufiles simply because we take the greatest pleasure in eating them.”
The influence of thunder-rains on truffles is referred to by Juvenal, who also speaks of the great estimation in which they were held :—
“ Post hunc tradentur tubera, si ver Tune erit et facient optata tonitrua ccenas
46 Rev. W. Houghton’s Notices of Fungi
Majores. Tibi habe frumentum, Alledius inquit, O Libye; disjunge boves, dum tubera mittas !”—Sat. v. 116-119.
“Then if the spring its genial influence shed
And welcome thunders call them from their bed,
Large truffles enter ; ravish’d with their size,
‘O Libya, keep your grain !’ Alledius cries,
‘O bid your oxen to your stalls retreat,
Nor, while you boast such truffles think of wheat !’”’ If Libya will only supply its splendid and far-famed truffles, Alledius cares nothing for its corn. African truffles, as we have seen, were supposed to be of the best quality.
Martial says that truffles are inferior only to boleti :—
‘“ Rumpimus altricem tenero que vertice terram Tubera, boletis poma secunda sumus.’—£p. xii. 50. “ We who, with tender head, burst through the earth that nourishes us are truffles, a fruit second only to boleti.” But here one would rather suppose that twbera denotes some fungus, not entirely subterranean, but growing, partly at least, on the surface.
Apollonius (Hist. Mir. 8. 46) quotes Theophrastus as saying that truffles (Udvev) grow harder in continued thunder weather.
Galen (De alim. facult. 2. 68, and elsewhere) says that truffles must be considered to be roots or bulbs, and that they possess little flavour, should be eaten with spices, and are harmless; have a thick but not a noxious juice. Different species of trufiles were doubtless known to and eaten by the Greeks and Romans, among which, most probably, would be Tuber wstivum, T. magnatum, T. bituminatum, and, perhaps, Melanogaster variegatus (Hypoget), which grows half out of the soil, and is eaten at Bath under the name of the “red truffle,” and Terfeyia Leonis*.
Mr. Bicknell often noticed truffles in the markets in N. Italy, as the 7. est’vum, and the ‘‘'Tartufi bianchi,” ‘white truffle,” which at Bologna was selling at 4 francs per pound, and is highly esteemed; this, he says, is the 7. magnatum, Pico.
Ceelius Apicius, whoever the author of the work ‘De Re Coquinaria Libri Decem’ may have been, or whenever he may have lived, has not omitted fungi from his treatise. We have seen that both among the Greeks and Romans fungi
* The tubera of the ancients doubtless included subterranean or semi- subterranean edible fungi which do not belong to the order Tuberacei. Tulasue is inclined to refer the mésu to the Terfeyia Leonis, which grows in April and May in oak-woods of the promontory Circeium, in Campania, which the people dig for and eat approvingly under the name of ‘“ Tartufo bianco :” it occurs plentifully in the sandy seashores about Terralba and Oristano in Sardinia. Tulasne adds, “ Nil nisi radix queedam crassa fere videtur et veresimiliter immerito pro Tubere s. fungo subterraneo nonnul- lis habetur.” Hydnotrya Tulasnei is dug up and eaten near Prague.
in Greek and Latin Authors. 47
were usually eaten with various condiments; Apicius, how- ever, is the only author who has mentioned the kinds of con- diments used, and his work in filling upa gap in the domestic habits of the Romans is very valuable, notwithstanding his obscurities and the solecisms of his style. For an insight into the details of the Roman kitchen we shall look elsewhere in vain. Although his work is one of comparatively recent date, there is no reason to doubt that his cooking receipts nay fairly be taken as specimens of those in use amongst the ancient Romans. He mentions Fungi farned * , perhaps such as grew near ash-trees ( farnet=fraxinet) , Boleti and Tubera. Here are his receipts for cooking Lung? farnet :—(1) Boil them, dry hot, and serve with wine-sauce (@nogarum) and pepper pounded in liquor; (2) Use pepper, sweet boiled wine (carenum), vinegar, and ‘oil ; (3) Another receipt :—boil in salt and serve with oil, wine, and pounded coriander seed.
For Boleti:—(1) Pour over them sweet boiled wine and add a bunch of green coriander; after boiling take out the bunch of coriander and serve. (2) Another receipt :—serve their stalks in liquor with salt. (3) Place the cut-off stalks (térsos) on a dish, pour echinus eggs (?) (wvam) over them with pepper, lovage, a little honey, and oil.
For ‘Tubera :—(1) Peel, boil, sprinkle with salt, and trans- fix with a twig (surculo infigis) ; partly roast, and place in a cooking-vessel with oil, liquor, sweet boiled wine, unmixed wine, pepper and honey ; ; while boiling, beat up with fine flour, take out the twigs and serve. (2) “Another receipt :—Boil, and sprinkle salt, transfix with twigs, partly roast, place in a cooking-vessel with liquor, oil, greens, sweet boiled wine, a small quantity of unmixed wine, pepper and a little honey, and let it boil; while boiling beat up with fine flour; prick the tubers that they may absorb, take out the twigs and serve. It you like you may surround the tubers with the omentum of a pig, then roast and serve.
Four other receipts tor cooking truffle are give—mint, rue, leeks (?), cummin, seseli, and parsley being the ingredients not mentioned in the above receipts (Apicius, ‘De Re Coquin. Lib. X.,’ pp. 154-156, ed. Chr. T. Schuch, 1874).
Under the name of sfonduli, funguli, or spongiolé Apicius is supposed by some writers to be referring to the Morel (Morchella), the modern Italian name “ spongiole ” preserving to us the tradition of its identity. This is most probable. Apicius gives several receipts for cooking morels, which do not differ in any particulars trom those he gives for serving funguli fainei (see p. 65 of Schuch’s edition).
The following Table, in which I have given the various Greek and Latin names of fungi, may be found useful :—
* Some editions read fa giner instead of farnet,
48 Notices of Fungi in Greek and Latin Authors. Greek and Latin Names of Fungi, &e.
_
Greek. Latin. Derivation, Species or meaning. er _ Le —————— EES = ———— ra duaviray, @v(m.), | ..... a Unknown. The general name of
Galen. A. pratensis and other
edible fungi. Mod. Grk. pavirapua.
_dyapikoy (n.). _agaricum. From Agarum in Sar- | Polyporus officinalis, matia. UGEINIOVt Ss | wana ee ena Of Lithuanian origin, | A name of the truffle, Waszkas “a fun- generallycalled vévor.
ous.” Cf. Mod. Greek toca, Pelasg. eské, a fungus. P. Somentarius.
3Aitns, ov (m.), | boletus. Bados, “a clod,’ a, Amanita Cesarea. Galen. round mass=Lat. | gleba, perhaps in al- lusion to the ball-like form of the young fungus.
troy (n.). ee ok f Unknown. A Thracian name of a
truffle.
_kepavyioy, ov (ye- ceraunium (Pliny). | kepavvos, thunder, A name of a truffle pavecov?) Theo- | which was thought phrastus. to grow more especi-
ally after thunder- showers.
_piov,vos, & ews(n.). misy (Pliny). Of Egyptian origin; |The name of some
| the word also de-| highly esteemed notes metallic efflo- truttle in the province
rescence of copper- of Cyrenaica.
ore of a golden or
| yellow colour (Dios-
cor. v. 116).
|
|pdkns, nros, or ov | fungus = sfungus =| akin to poxos (mucus), | The general Greek and (m.) (7%). | omdyyos “asponge,”| “slime,” Latin name of any
cf. spongiole, the kind of fungus,
| present Italian name
_ of the morel (Mor-
| chella). | metus, cos (f.). | pezice (Pliny). né€a, “the foot,” “bot- | Various kinds of Puff meCs, uxos (fi). | tom,” “base,” that} balls, Bovista and Ly- | which rests on its| coperdon. Cf.the mo- base, “ sessile.” | dern Italian name of
| | vescia, “ toadstool,” | “ puff-fist.”
|
* According to Wharton (‘Etyma Greca,’ pp. 30 and 61), aryov is etymologically allied to igds, “‘ bird-lime,” Lat. vesewm, English “ wax ;” with this idea the Greek word pokns, ‘a slimy sticky thing,” may be compared.
Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asiatic Longicornia. 49
One more Latin name, viz. Helvella, requires a_ short notice. Helvella or Helvela, which the grammarian Festus etymologically explains as “olera minuta,’ 7 e. small garden herbs (helus=olus), is used by Cicero (Ep. ad Fam. vii. 26) apparently to denote some kind of fungus. From Cicero’s letter to Gallus it would seem that the fashion of eating fungi, which, as we have seen, is considered by Pliny to have been one of rather recent date, originated from a desire to substitute some dainty kind of food for that which the ‘ Lex sumptuaria’”’ (the act which regulated the expenses of the table) forbade in the case of certain expensive articles of animal diet. Products of the soil were not included in the act; hence, as Cicero tells us, the dainty feeders of his day devised all modes of cooking vegetable food in order to make it tasty; and the great orator accounts for an illness which troubled him by a too free use of such rich diet. The “‘ Lex sumptuaria,” simple enough apparently, was, after all, a fraud in his case ; he had abstained from oysters and murene, but not from highly-seasoned vegetables. ‘“‘ Nam dum volunt illi lauti terra nata, que lege excepta sunt, in honorem addu- cere, fungos, helvellas, herbas omnes, ita condiunt, ut nihil possit esse suavius.” ‘ While those elegant eaters wish to bring into high repute the products of the soil which are not included in the act, they prepare their fungi, helvelle, and all vegetables with such highly seasoned condiments, that it is impossible to conceive anything more delicious.” It is not improbable therefore that the extensive use of fungi as a favourite article of food among the rich Romans is to be attributed to some extent to the “ Lex sumptuaria,”’ which is ascribed by Aulus Gellius to M. Licinius Crassus in the year of Rome 643, and that in the time of the emperors the fashion became still more common.
The use of the word helvella, proposed by Linneus and retained by modern mycologists, to denote the genus which it represents, is as arbitrary and irrelevant as the other words which he has transferred from classical writers.
VI.—Descriptions of some new Asiatic Longicornia.
By Francis P. Pascor, F.L.S.
Mr. H. Pryer having recently sent a small collection of
insects from Ellopura, in North Borneo, containing a few
undescribed Longicorn beetles, I have taken the opportunity
in publishing them of adding a few unnamed eastern species Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xv. 4
50 Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asratie Longicornia.
from my collection. Among other rare and handsome species from Ellopura were Peribasis pubicollis, Calpazia vermicu- laris, Xoanodera trigona, Ephies dilaticornis, Gnatholea sub-
nuda, &c. The following is a list of the species described below :—
LAMIID. Xoanodera amcena. Ellopura. Agelasta polyspila. Naas Island. eauaee cote Pi Eee Cereopsius arbiter. Labuan. are pace YKacn se es ; cou Stromatium signiferum. Ceylon. Talus eutiatia, = Katona Cymaterus torridus. Ellopura. ¢ , ,: ti E Mesosa incongrua. Ellopura, Salita oe pee Sthenias lunulatus. Ellopura. Cl ius a - ae aaeee A a es Sybropisfrontalis. Ellopura. eres a Badecescr se: ea Distenia Pryeri. Ellopura. CERAMBYCIDE,
Dymasius vitreus. Ellopura.
Agelasta polyspila.
A, nigrescens, guttis pube albida formatis, notata; capite leviter punctato; antennis corpore vix longioribus, articulis quatuor basalibus nigris, ceteris albo-pubescentibus ; prothorace trans- verso, utrinque rotundato, obsolete punctato, pilis albidis ad- sperso; scutello semilunare; elytris leviter punctatis, margine basali maculisque, plurimis majoribus, albidis; corpore infra elabrato, nigro, margine segmentorum piloso; pedibus omnino nitide nigris. Long. 8—9 lin.
Hab. Naas Island (Sumatra).
Allied to A, erroraia, but the prothorax not tuberculate at the sides, antenne not ringed, the tarsi entirely black, and the elytra not spotted with black, show it to be a very distinct species.
Cereopsius arbiter.
C. ater, nitidus, maculis magnis niveo-pilosis ornatus ; capite nigro, parce albo-piloso ; antennis nigro-fuscis, subtilissime pubescen- tibus ; prothorace impunctato, ad latera macula magna nivea, basi cinereo-piloso; elytris, humeris exceptis, fere impunctatis, his punctis sparse impressis, a medio stria juxta suturam munitis, apicibus extus dentatis, maculis duobus magnis lateralibus niveis ; pedibus et corpore infra leviter pubescentibus, segmentis abdo- minis margine fimbriatis. Long. 9 lin.
Hab. Labuan. ti) The elytra are shorter in proportion than in C. luctuosus and CU. triciénctus, and the punctures are confined to the
Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asiatic Longicornia. 51
shoulders ; in the former the prothorax 1s entirely black, in the latter it is crossed by a broad white band.
Cereopsius spilotus.
C. opacus, capite parce ochraceo-piloso; antennis rufulis, subtilissime pubescentibus ; prothorace nigrescente, ad latera macula magna roseo-alba ornato ; elytris basi parce punctatis, apicibus subtrun- eatis, singulo maculis duabus magnis et una parva versus apicem sitis, roseo-albis ; corpore infra femoribusque infuscatis, tibiis tarsisque rufulis, subtiliter pubescentibus. Long. 7 lin.
Hab. Labuan.
In this species the apices of the elytra are not spined; in the example before me the elytra are of a dark claret-colour and the spots pale rose-white.
Cereopstus satelles.
CO. niger, opacus; capite subtiliter albo-pubescente ; antennis arti- culis duobus basalibus nigris ceteris rufescentibus, pube leviter vestitis ; prothorace ad latera macula magna fulvescente ornato ; elytris, humeris exceptis, impunctatis, apicibus extus dentatis, macula magna rotundata ante alteraque oblonga pone medium flavescentibus, interdum cinereo-plagiatis ; metasterno utrinque macula alba munito, femoribus infuscatis, tibiis tarsisque rutes- centibus. Long. 7 lin.
Hab. Sarawak.
Allied to C. exoletus, but with proportionally shorter elytra, the punctures confined to the shoulders, and with different but not very dissimilar coloration. The scutella in the three species are triangular, rounded more or less at the apex.
Diallus guttatus.
D. niger, subnitidus, niveo-maculatus; capite postice genisque niveo-pilosis; antennis brunneis leviter griseo-pubescentibus ; prothorace parce punctato, in medio linea elevata transversa munite, maculis connexis, vittas tres niveas formantibus, ornato ; scutello semicirculari ; elytris sat vage punctatis, singulo maculis niveis bene determinatis, circa tredecim, ornatis; pedibus nigrtis, sat dense albido-pilosis; corpore infra nigro, margine metasterni segmentisque abdominis basi utrinque albido-pilosis. Long. 4-5 lin.
Hab. Kaioa, Batchian.
Smaller than D. lachrymosus, with narrower and more cuneiform elytra, the spots more distinct, and with an elevated transverse line on the prothorax. One of Mr. Wallace’s cap- tures.
4*
52 Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asiatic Longicornia.
Mesosa incongrua.
M. migra, pube ochracea albo-maculata vestita; capite fronte sat elongato, inter oculos modice convexo ; lobo inferiore oculi majus- culo; antennis corpore plus duplo longioribus, articulis primis, duobus nigris exceptis, albis ; prothorace transverso, rude punc- tato, in medio bicalloso; scutello majusculo, apice late rotundato ; elytris subdepressis, ad latera modice punctatis, basi granulatis, apice rotundatis, ante medium maculis albis quatuor, quarum tribus posterioribus connexis, et versus apicem maculis fasciatim dispositis, notatis ; corpore infra pedibusque rufescentibus, leviter pilosis ; tarsis articulis primis duobus dimidio basali albis. Long. 5 lin.
Hab, El\lopura.
It may be that this species is not correctly referred to Me- sosa; the larger lower lobe of the eye and the conspicuous cicatrix is rather opposed to those characters in that genus. But I do not see any better place for it.
Sthenias lunulatus.
S. fuscus, vix nitidus, leviter pubescens; capite pone antennas tuberculis duobus obliquis munito; antennis corpore brevioribus, gracilibus, obscure annulatis ; prothorace rude punctato, in medio bicalloso ; scutello transverso, majusculo; elytris subcylindricis, vage punctatis, parce granulatis, apicibus subtruncatis, ad latera in medio plaga albo-pilosa notatis, pone medium lunula alba di- stincta; abdomine segmentis tribus basalibus densius_pilosis ; pedibus pilis longis adspersis. Long. 4 lin.
Hab. Ellopura. A smallspecies, shorter in proportion than S. griseator, with more slender antenne, a straggling pubescence, &e.
SYBROPIS. Sybra congruit, sed tibiee intermedi haud emarginatee.
The only exponent of this genus resembles in its greyish spots and broader outline Sybra purpurascens. One of the characters of Sybra is to have the intermediate tibie emar- ginate, or notched, on their lower and outer part--a character which, in some groups, 1s thought to be of more than generic importance.
Sybropis frontalis.
S. ovata, fusca, supra fortiter confertim punctata, et parce griseo- pubescens, pube hic illic maculatim condensata; capite brevi, inter oculos macula magna dense albo-pilosa notato; antennis
Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asiatic Longicornia. 53 corpore haud longioribus, articulis tertio quartoque fere sequali- bus; prothorace transverso, utrinque rotundato ; scutello dense piloso ; elytris subampliatis, ad latera gradatim rotundatis, basi granulatis, apice rotundatis; femoribus valde clavatis; articulo ultimo tarsorum elongato. Long. 5 lin.
Hab. Ellopura.
Dymastus vitreus.
D. angustus, piceus, elytris pube nitide sericante griseo tectis ; pro- thorace oblongo, ad latera rotundato, disco utrinque sulcato et in medio nigro-vittato; elytris infuscatis et postice singulatim annulo infuscato notatis, apicibus subtruncatis; corpore infra pedibusque piceis, subtilissime pubescentibus. Long. 7 lin.
Hab. Ellopura.
One of the characters of M. Thomson’s genus Dymasius is to have the elytra ‘ four-spined.”” My genus Jmdrius, of a somewhat later date, has its elytra not so spined; but this is not, I think, of generic value. ‘The female in this and other allied genera has the antenne serrated; in the male the an- tenne are longer, the joints more cylindrical, the third and fourth more or less knotted at the apex. This new species is allied to D. micaceus, but, inter alia, it has a much broader prothorax and longer elytra, t apering, although slightly, fro.n
the base to the apex; the silky reflections are also different,
not forming longitudinal patches.
Noanodera AMeNa,
X, picea ; capite antennisque fulvido-pubescentibus, his corpore vix longioribus ; prothorace in medio fortiter canaliculato, lateribus rude sculpturato, interrupte fulvido-piloso ; scutello cordiformi ; elytris dense albido-pilosis, parce punctatis, lateribus et humeris usque ad medium macula determinata lite fusca et grosse punc- tata, munitis, apicibus fuscis, oblique truncatis, margine extus dentatis ; corpore infra pedibusque dense griseo-pubescentibus. Long. 8 lin.
Hab. Ceylon.
Generically this pretty Longicorn agrees perfectly with Xoanodera, and there is an agreement fo a certain extent in coloration atin X. trigona ; never helo the two species in factes are by no means alike. ‘he hairs on the prothorax in both species are confined to the raised portions, appearing as little tufts.
Ceres tum coronar cum.
C. angustum, rufo-testaceum, pilis albis adpressis aliis longis ad- spersis, vestitum ; capite inter oculos macula albida magna, in
54 Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asiatic Longicornia.
medio divisa, notato; antennis testaceis, longe pilosis ; protho- race oblongo, rugoso-punctato, maculis quatuor albidis ornato ; scutello albido; elytris sat confertim punctatis, basi granulatis ;
propectore rugoso-punctato ; corpore infra pedibusque minus pilosis. Long. 5 lin.
Hab. Bouru.
A stouter species than CO. cretatum, and without spots on the elytra.
Ceresium rotundicolle.
C. oblongum, rufo-testaceum, pilis griseis adspersis ; prothorace elytrisque obscure fulvo-maculatis ; antennis corpore vix longiori- bus ; prothorace utrinque rotundato in medio subdepresso, ad latera quadrimaculato ; scutello cordiformi, fulvo ; elytris punctatis, basi granulatis, maculis circa undecim notatis, quarum una communi oblonga basali, ceteris dispersis ; corpore infra pedibusque sub- tilissime pubescentibus ; propectore rugoso. Long. 4 lin.
Hab, Ceylon.
QO. cretatum is a remarkably narrow form with a cylindrical prothorax and snow-white spots; nevertheless there is a certain resemblance between it and the above.
SoTrra.
Caput breve, subverticale ; palpi maxillares elongati, articulo ultimo securiformi. Oculi magni, grosse granulati. Antenne corpore longiores, basi distantes. Prothoraw subdepressus, rotundatus. Elytra prothorace latiora, depressa. Femora clavata, basi attenu- ata; tibiz recte; tarsi graciles; unguiculi divaricati. MJeso- sternum triangulare. Abdomen breve, segmentis ineequalibus.
With some hesitation I refer this genus to Lacordaire’s “¢ Hesperophanides.” Except that the intermediate cotyloid cavities are angulate externally it might have been placed with the ‘ Callidiopsides.”
Sotira flexuosa.
S. oblonga, depressa, testacea, subtilissime albo-pubescens ; capite inter oculos linea nigra impressa; antennis pilosis ; prothorace subsericeo, lateribus solis punctatis; scutello majusculo, subqua- drato ; elytris sat vage punctatis, in medio planatis, versus latera angulatis, apicibus rotundatis, fasciis tribus flexuosis fuscis nota- tis, fascia pone medium latiore, tertia inconspicua vel maculi- formi; abdomine nitido; tibiis setosulis. Long. 4-5 lin.
Hab. Kaioa, Amboyna. The irregular bands on the elytra will be found to vary ;
in one of my specimens the basal band forms two O-shaped marks just touching the middle one.
Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asiatic Longicornia. 55
Stromatium signiferum.
S. elongatum, fuscum, parce griseo-pilosum; elytris quadri-flavo- maculatis ; capite prothoraceque subtiliter punctatis, hoc subtrans- verso, utrinque modice rotundato ; antennis corpore longioribus, longe pilosis, articulo primo punctato basi constricto; scutello majusculo, transverso; elytris apicem versus gradatim paulo angustioribus, confertim punctatis, apice rotundatis, muticis, basi maculis duabus flavescentibus et fere in medio duabus obliquis majoribus, notatis; corpore infra pedibusque subtilissime pube- scentibus. Long. 7 lin.
Hab. Ceylon.
This is rather a suspicious Stromatium; but I can find no generic difference except the absence of the sutural spine— too slight a character to justify its separation.
CYMATERUS.
Caput exsertum, antice productum. Antenne breves, crasse ( ° ). Prothorax breviter ovatus. Hlytra breviuscula. Coxe antice separate. Abdomen breve, subconicum.
The characters of this genus are nearly identical with those of Erythrus, but in factes the two genera are essentially different. The shorter elytra and abdomen, the latter nar- rowing gradually behind and not depressed, compared with the long elytra and abdomen parallel at the sides and below the level of the sterna, show, however, that they belong to different types. The sculpture of the prothorax is unique.
Cymaterus torridus.
C. niger, opacus; prothorace, vittis duabus exceptis, humerisque satu- rate rubris ; capite antice rufo-piceo, confertim punctato, in medio annulo profunde impresso ; antennis fortiter serratis ( 9 ), articulo primo rude punctato; prothorace transversim undulato-sculpturato, nigro-bivittato, apice paulo angustiore ; scutello scutiformi, fulvo- sericeo; elytris confertim punctatis, lateribus fere parallelis, apicibus suboblique truncatis; corpore infra dense argenteo- piloso. Long. 6 lin.
Hab. Ellopura.
Artimpaza formosa.
A, nigra, nitida; capite pone oculos et prothorace in medio metallico- - eupreis, hoc fere impunctato, postice chalybeato:et confertim punctato; antennis articulis tribus basalibus, tertio apice excepto, luteis, ceeteris nigris ; scutello nigro ; elytris longe cuneatis, api- cibus acutis, singulo in medio vitta, fere impuctata, conformi, subaurea, notato, cetero elytri chalybeato, sat grosse punctato;
56 Mr. F. P. Pascoe on new Asiatic Longicornia.
corpore infra pedibusque posticis glabris chalybeatis, intermediis et anticis luteis. Long. 8 lin.
Hab. Ellopura.
This handsome species is very distinct from its only con- gener (A. odontoceroides, Thoms.) in its stouter form and different coloration. The only specimen I have seen is a female, in which the antenne extend only in a slight degree beyond the prothorax. Artimpaza,the name given tothe genus by M. Thomson, is the name of the Scythian Venus, and is one of the many names to which the authors of the excel- lent ‘ Catalogus Coleopterorum’ attached a doubtful or no meaning.
Artimpaza bicolor.
A, nitide rufescens, elytris nigrescentibus ; capite rude punctato ; antennis corpore longioribus (@), linearibus, articulo secundo longiusculo, tertio ad septimum apice, ceteris omnino, infuscatis ; protnorace antice glabro, in medio parce punctato, postice depresso ; scutello oblongo albo-tomentoso ; elytris parallelis, sat confertim punctatis, apicibus obtusis; femoribus posticis ad apicem ab- dominis fere protensis; tarsis infuscatis ; corpore infra glabro. Long. 6 lin.
Hab. Andaman Islands.
The antenne in my specimen agree with the description of M. Thomson of those of the male of A. odontoceroides, the type; but it is so different from those of the female that I should have hesitated about placing them in the same genus. This species wants the vitreous stripe on the elytra, the apices of which are not pointed; the posterior femora also are longer, reaching nearly to the end of the abdomen.
Clytellus olesterotdes.
C. niger, subnitidus; capite verticali, antice argenteo-pubescente, inter oculos lobo bifido erecto instructo; antennis nigris; pro- thorace elongato, postice valde constricto, antice gibboso, in medio linea modice elevata munito ; scutello oblongo, albo-piloso ; elytris parallelis, in medio constrictis, humeris prominulis, subtiliter punctatis, fascia mediana apicibusque albo-sericeis ; corpore infra sericeo-argenteo, Long. 3 lin.
Hab. Andaman Islands.
As in C. Westwoodii, there are no tubercles at the base of the elytra, the absence of which and the ‘‘ non-perpendicular”’ head seemed to Lacordaire to indicate a separate genus. The former character appears to me to be scarcely more than specific, and I see no difference in the latter independent of the setting of the specimen. ‘This species is very interesting,
Mr. A. G. Butler on Delias belladonna. oe
as it “‘ mimics” another insect belonging to a different family and to another zoological region—the Olesterus australis of Gorham (Cleride), from Australia. The type of the genus, CO. methocoides, Prof. Westwood compared to a genus of ants
(Methoca). Distenia Pryert.
D. elongata, fusca, sat dense subtiliter albido-pubescens ; capite inter oculos lineatim longitudinaliter impresso; antennis leviter pilosis; prothorace subtilissime confertim punctato, disco quadri- tuberculato, apice tubulato; elytris longe cuneatis, seriatim punctatis, punctis postice gradatim obsoletis, apice singulorum bispinoso, spina exteriore longiore ; pedibus sparse pilosis, pilis longis adspersis; femoribus muticis. Long. 11 lin.
Hab. Ellopura.
In its uniform coloration this species is allied to D. japo- nica *, but is at once differentiated by its two-spined elytra, The fine whitish pubescence on its brown derm makes a clear dark greyish colour. I have named this graceful Longicorn after Mr. H. Pryer, who is an observer as well as a eallleeiore
VII.—Note respecting Butterflies confounded under the name of Delias belladonna of Fabricius. By Artuur G. BUTLER.
For some years past it has been maintained by most lepi- dopterists that Papilio belladonna of Fabricius, figured by Donovan in the ‘ Naturalist’s Repository,’ is the female of Delias Horsfielavi of Gray’s ‘ Insects of Nepal;’ on the other hand, I have always insisted that, however bad Donovan's fioure might be, it represented a brown and not a black species, a ‘male and not a female, and certainly a species in which the whole abdominal border of the secondaries was yellowish white, not partly white and partly yellow. Amongst the Lepidoptera of the late Mr. Charles Horne, collected in the North-west Provinces of India, I found a single specimen of a Delias which, after comparison with Donovan’s figure, I am satisfied represents the true D. belladonna; it is a brown, not a black insect, it is a male, not a female, and the abdominal border of the secondaries is wholly creamy
* D. japonica, Bates (1873), is said to he synonymous with Apheles gracilis, Blessig (1872), from Amur-land; the species should therefore stand as D. ical (Blessig).
58 Mr. A. G. Butler on Delias belladonna.
white; the yellow spot at anal angle is also perfectly separate from the yellow commencement of the discal macular band, as in the figure by Donovan; the shape and markings of the pri- maries are quite as in that figure, and therefore quite dissimilar from D. Horsfieldii 8.
I think therefore that we may conclude that Deléas bella- donna is a species confined to the North-west Provinces, that D. Horsfieldii is confined to Nepal, and that other forms allied to these may yet be expected to turn up. The two following have been confounded with D. Horsjieldit :—
Delias Hearseyt, sp. n. g. Nearly allied to the Nepalese D. Horsfieldit, slightly
smaller; the yellow patch at base of secondaries duller and of a more orange colour; the yellow patch on abdominal area only represented by a dull yellowish nebula at the extremity of the white area, which is restricted owing to the anal angle being broadly black-bordered; the yellow spot near anal angle represented by a few white scales, whereas in D. Hors- fieldit it is always present as a squamose yellow spot sub- confluent with the abdominal patch: on the underside all the yellow spots are of a dull chrome-yellow, not bright gamboge, as in D. Horsfieldit; they are also rounded and narrower than in that species, so that they are in consequence smaller and further apart. Expanse of wings 79 millim. Barrackpore (Sir John Hearsey). B.M.
Delias Boylee, sp. n.
g. Form and size of D. Horsfieldit, but in the coloration of the wings much nearer to D. zthcela, the ordinary markings being represented by internervular grey streaks, upon which the submarginal spots of the primaries and three or four small spots on the disk of all the wings alone show white ; base of secondaries almost brick-red (or dull orange) ; basal half of abdominal area grey, anal half bright chrome-yellow : below all the spots smaller and much more restricted than in D. Horsfieldit; all the yellow spots duller, chrome-yellow. Hx- panse of wings 84 millim.
Darjiling (rs. Rk. V. Boyle). B.M.
Females in this group seem to be very rare; of the four species here mentioned we only have male examples in the British-Museum series.
On anew English Amphipodous Crustacean. 59
VIII.—Description of anew English Amphipodous Crustacean. By the Rev. Tuomas R. R. Stespine, M.A.
[ Plate IT.)
Cyproidia damnoniensis, n. sp.
In the fourth volume of the ‘ Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales’ (1880), Mr. W. A. Haswell instituted the genus Cyproidia with two species (C. ornata and C. lineata), which he placed in the family Gammaride. In his ‘Catalogue of Australian Crustacea’ (1882) he has assigned the genus to a subfamily Cyproidides, defined as having the first two side-plates of the perzeon very small, the next two very large, and the two following small. Of the genus itself he gives the following description :
“ Body broad. Pereion and pleon of equal length. Coxe of gnathopoda very small. Coxe of the first and second pairs of pereiopoda enormously developed and cemented together to form broad and deep lateral shields, concealing almost entirely the gnathopoda and pereiopoda, and extending forwards to the sides of the cephalon, and backwards as far as the poste- rior border of the sixth segment of the pereion, excavated posteriorly for the shallow coxe of the third pereiopoda. Coxee of the last two pairs of pereiopoda very small. An- tenne subequal, superior without an appendage. Mandibles with a palp. Maxillipedes unguiculate; both basos and ischitum armed with small squamiform plates. Gnathopoda subcheliform. Pereiopoda slender. Posterior pleopoda bi- ramous. ‘Telson single.” To this he appends a note :— “The coxee of the third and fourth pereiopoda are not amal gamated, as erroneously stated in the original description, but that of the fourth pair is entirely rudimentary and covered by that of the third.”
In the year 1882 the genus Stegoplax was founded by Prof. G. O. Sars, and assigned to his family Amphilochide, which coincides with the subfamily Amphilochine of Axel Boeck’s classification. ‘his genus, like Cyproédia, is characterized by the enormous development of the third and fourth pairs of side-plates in the peraon and the rudimentary structure of the first and second pairs ; to which characters are added the narrow linear form of the first or basal joint in the third and fourth pereeopods. ‘The mandibles are described by Professor Sars as having a tolerably large molar tubercle, but a minute
alp.
it is, I think, tolerably obvious that the two genera Cy-
60 Rey. T. R. R. Stebbing on a new
proidia and Stegoplax ought to be united, in which case, by priority of date, Cyproddia will take precedence. Whether the peculiar development of the side-plates justifies the esta- blishment of a new family or subfamily to receive the genus may be for the present left open to consideration. The general aspect of the animals recalls the Stenothoinz, but the maxil- lipeds exclude them from that group, while there is nothing in the characteristics of the Amphilochine to make their admission into that group impossible. ‘lhe cementing toge- ther of the third and fourth side-plates, and the covering up of the sixth by the fifth, of which Mr. Haswell speaks, do not appear to be characters of the Huropean species. The English species, unlike that described by Prof. Sars, has the first joint of the fourth perseopod dilated.
The species now to be described I received, along with some very prettily mounted Copepoda, from Mr. C. W. Parker, of Warren Cottage, Starcross,in Devonshire. In answer to my inquiry, Mr. Parker said that he collected the specimens at low tide at Straight Point, and that my friend the Rev. A. M. Nor- man, to whom he had also sent specimens, promptly recognized them as the fellows of one which he had himself previously found, but which was not yet described.
The eyes are small, round, red, with about twenty com- ponents. ‘The rostrum is small.
The upper antenne have a stout peduncle, the first joint as long as the other two united, each joint successively being thinner as well as shorter than the preceding. Of the flagel- lum the first joint is stout, fringed below with seven long, divergent, not tapering, sete; of the three remaining joints the third is the longest and thinnest, prettily coloured with purple. The secondary. flagellum is minute, one-jointed.
In the much slenderer lower antenne the fourth and fifth joints of the peduncle are nearly equal in length ; the flagellum consists of four tapering joints.
The upper lip is incised at the extremity, one lobe being larger than the other.
In both mandibles the molar tubercle is strongly developed, with sinuous rows of minute sharp teeth. The spine-row consists of six curved spines. The cutting-edge is divided into eight or nine unequal irregular teeth, minute but sharp. In one mandible, but, I think, not in the other, there is a secondary plate, also sharply toothed. The palp is small, three- jointed, so delicately transparent as to be difficult to see.
The first maxille are slender, having the outer plate topped with some eight spines, the two-jointed palp with four. ‘The inner plate has not come under my notice.
English Amphipodous Orustacean. 61
The second maxille are also slender, the outer plate a little overtopping the inner, each being surmounted with three or four spines.
In the maxillipeds the inner plates are elongate, with incised, not sloping, distal margins ; the outer plates, of some- what oval shape, do not reach to the end of the second joint of the palp. They have a relatively large apical spine, and along the upper part of the inner margin excessively fine spines. The third joint of the palp is somewhat longer than the first or second, with an inner lobe at the base of the finger. The finger is well developed, curved.
Among the pereeon segments the second is narrower than any of the others.
The two gnathopods are nearly alike in structure, except as tothe hands. ‘That of the first gnathopod narrows distally, has no distinct palm, and carries spines or hairs on the palin- margin. In one specimen there were two small groups, in another four spines spaced at equal intervals along the margin. In the second gnathopod the hand widens towards the palm, which is defined by a broad tooth-like process in which are inserted two relatively strong spines, between which the finger closes down. ‘The margin of the palm is convex. In both hands the strong curved finger has on the concave margin three little teeth followed by a larger one, after which comes the sharp-pointed nail.
The side plates of the first three pereopods are neatly fitted together, forming almost an oval, truncate on the upper side. Of the three, the side-plate of the second pereopod is much the largest, with a convex front and an excavated hinder margin, the excavation being filled in by the small plate of the third pereeopod.
The first, second, and third pereeopods are similar in struc- ture, with long and slender first joints ; the third joints a little dilated, more so proximally than distally ; the fifth joints a little longer than the fourth; the fingers tairly strong, curved. In the third pereopod, however, the four last joints are all respectively a good deal shorter than those in the first pereeo- pod. ‘The fourth pereeopod has the first joint winged with a dilatation so transparent as easily to escape notice, except in a good light. It is shorter than the first joint of the preceding leg. In the fifth pereeopod the dilated first joint has a sinuous lower margin. It may be roughly regarded as quadrangular, but the sides are not straight and the lower part is rather broader than the upper.
The three first segments of the pleon are longer than any of those of the perzeon except the fitth. ‘hey carry pleopoda
62 Bibliographical Notices.
of no great strength. The third pleon segment is produced backwards in a rounded lobe formed by the hinder and lower margins. The three following segments are very small, carrying slender uropods, decreasing in size from the first to the third pair. In all the rami are minutely serrate. In the first pair the peduncle is long, but in the third it is very short.
The huge boat-shaped telson reaches as far back as the tip of the shorter branch of the third pair of uropods.
The colour in the mounted specimens was a beautiful red in some parts and purple in others; the size, a tenth of an inch, agrees with the diminutive proportions of the other species of this curious genus.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE IL.
Full figure, side view of specimen less than 7; inch in length. Antenne and gn. 1 A from another specimen, the remaining figures from a third (dissected) specimen, drawn under the +-inch power, eyepieces A and B, of Beck’s popular microscope.
a. &., flagellum of superior antenna, mv. 2, second maxilla.
a, t., antenna inferior, mep., maxillipeds.
1. s., labium superius, gn. 1, first gnathopod.
1. ¢., labium inferius. gn. 2, second gnathopod.
m. m., mandibles: figure on the left prp.1, 8, 4, 5, first, third, fourth, with cutting-edge and spine- and fifth perseopods. row; figure on the right with TT, telson, with third and second cutting-edge and secondary uropods. plate, more highly magnified, wr, 1, first uropods.
ma, 1, first maxilla, n. s., natural size.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
British Oribatide, By Atserr D. Micwart, F.LS., F.RMLS., &e. Vol. I. 8yvo. London: Printed for the Ray Society, 1884.
In the Preface we are told “that this book is the record of work done in the scanty leisure of a very busy man.” ‘The author has for some five years turned his attention to the Oribatide, a family of Acarina commonly known as “ Beetle-mites,” in allusion to their usually convex beetle-like form and the hardness of their integu- ments. Little was known of them or of their earlier stages, for, ike many other Mites, they undergo a series of changes after emerging from the egg, or, in other words, they pass through larval and nymphal stages to the imago, so that in the majority of cases “it would be impossible to identify the nymph with the adult except from knowledge.” Thus it was necessary to watch the animals from the egg tomaturity. ‘The creatures,” says our author, “are minute, scarcely visible at all to the naked eye. When in the cage (or cell)
Bibliographical Notices. 63
every inspection must be made under a microscope of some sort ; the creatures hide in the moss or blotting-paper, which it is necessary to put into the cell (for they must be fed and kept damp), and yet they must be examined to see what is going on. . . . Many of them take months to have their changes traced ; indeed I have had a single speci- men alive in the cage for over a year before its changes were complete, so that I might say with certainty to what species the larva or nymph belonged. During this time the cage must be examined every day, and it must be ascertained that the proper hygrometric condition is maintained. . . . I have often had fifty such cages in action at one time, each with its inhabitant; the cages must accompany the observer in every journey, as a few days’ neglect would kill all the specimens.” It was to Mrs. Michael’s “ patient attention to them, and to her skilled hand in moving them,” that the author owed his ** success in rearing them.”
The Oribatidee are vegetable-feeders, of sluggish habits, and “ sham dead” in presence of an enemy. ‘Their distribution is probably world-wide: they are found in Spitzbergen as well as in Egypt and Chili; one from Franz-Joseph Land is identical with our Ovibata setosa. In one place—the Land’s End—the author detected “ what appears to be a local fauna.”
To show how complete the author’s treatment of his subject is we may give the headings of the various chapters. The first part con- tains :—(1) Introductory, (2) Terminology, (3) Literature of Oriba- tide, (+) Classification of Acarina, (5) Classification of Oribatide, (6) Development, (7) Habits, (8) Collecting and Preservation, (9) Anatomy of exo-skeleton, (10) Internal Anatomy. The second part is devoted to descriptions of the genera* and species; but of this we have here only a first instalment, including one half of the genera recognized by the author as represented in Britain. Forty species are described, seven of them as new, while several of the others are discoveries of the author’s, previously described by him in the ‘ Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society.’
The plaves are admirable works of art, and their accuracy may be depended on, as the figures were nearly all drawn from living examples by the author. There are twenty-two coloured and six plain plates, the latter illustrating chiefly the anatomy.
We must congratulate the author and the Ray Society very heartily upon the production of this beautiful volume. No such thorough and reliable work has been done anywhere upon any family of that most difficult group the Mites; and certainly as regards the British species of the group it must be considered as inaugurating a new era. It is to be hoped that the second volume, completing the descriptive portion of the work, will not long delay its appearance, and that the Council of the Ray Society may see their way to furnish us with similar treatises upon other families of the Acarina.
* The name of one of the genera—LZetosoma—had been previously used, as might be expected, when Nicolet wrote. oplophora too, which is retained in the table of genera, had been given to two genera before it was taken up by Koch.
64 Bibliographical Notices.
Antiquity of Man, as deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton during the Excavations of the East- and West-India Dock-extensions at Tilbury, North Bank of the Thames. By Sir Ricnarp Owen, K.C.B., F.R.S., &. 8vo. 32 pages; with 5 plates. Van Voorst: London, 1884.
Herer the author describes in detail some of the bones of the skeleton found, in 1883, in excavating the new docks at Tilbury, at a depth of 343 feet below the level of the marsh, and 41 feet below Trinity highwater-mark. In the frontispiece a diagram gives the following section of the ground, beginning at the top :—
tte PC ay. oS cecus ere eee mente aio detielelavetoles-scieie 6:04 OMIM eer ra cass aie cache aeeraket ercie soiree 10:76 SiCMud “and peat’. lia. esses e's 1-70 A OI Gat AEST Wide viibhet laa 1:08 Bo eMiadya ws Asif oe eet eice teers teieieleatee 3°86 GlaiPeat side ects 6 care sis ilona eee Sie 3°58 FOOT kee al ieee aR AER IR Gt AB caGIER A 1:76 8. Mud and peat... ccc eee me ae 324 9. Sand and decayed wood.......... 0:82 mth Sarda ede ene hs te Ue Rieu reicene 1eAl
Level at which the remains were found.
MW Sandi S Salts Secale ese ia eretatete 10‘76
12, Ballast-gravel.
The author finds the bones to have belonged to an old—perhaps very old—robust man, of low intelligence. All the areas of muscular attachment on the bones indicate a very strong and active muscular system; the forehead is low and narrow, with prominent frontal sinuses, and ‘“ the eminences and depressions indicative of cerebral convolutions are few and feebly indicated.” The lower jaw is senile, the alveclar process of the molars absorbed, and the remain- ing teeth show signs of local decay. The ridged and rough muscular regions on the skull, the lower jaw, a humerus, and a femur are especially noticed ; and, in particular, the rough, obliquely promi- nent upper portion of the gluteal ridge on the left thigh-bone (not nearly so much developed on the fellow femur, exposed in the Mammalian Saloon of the British Museum), which prominence the author likens to the “third trochanter” “in most perissodactyle quadrupeds.” The tibias are not described in detail; but they appear to be platycnemic, as seen in the glass case in the Museum, though not quite so sharp-edged as in some of the other prehistoric skeletons already known.
The author does not enter into the bibliographic history of the remains of prehistoric man; he only alludes to the remains found in the cave at Bruniquel, and to M. Quatrefages’s summary on fossil man and savages ; and he makes some reference to the doubtful existence of Tertiary man.
(Cae
Bibliographical Notices, 65
With regard to the head-characters of the ‘ancient British aboriginal” from Tilbury Marsh, Sir Richard says :—‘‘ These are exceptions to the cranial outline in the educated humanity of the actual or recent period, whilst the ‘ Tilbury skull’ may accord with the rule in the Paleolithic range of time. But the bimanal charac- ters of the skeleton are distinct from quadrumanal ones in the earliest as in the latest and highest races of mankind ” (p. 24). In this statement we do not fae anything new.
Whether the old man of Tilbury (evidently endowed with great brute force, though perhaps with a low intellect) was one of the earliest of men is very doubtful. The cursory popular sketch of the history of the river-deposits at Tilbury (pp. 24-27) does not carry much geological weight; for the history of the order and changes of deposition and transportation of débris, and of the local accumula- tion of peat in the lower reaches of a large river must be very exact before definite conclusions ean be eat at; nor can the indefinite “mud,” which alternates with the peat, yield much information to either the geologist or the general reader. The gravel at the bottom of the section may, on one hand, be a deposit made by the river at an early period, when the land stood higher than at present, and may have been either fluviatile or estuarine. On the other hand, the river may have scooped out a deep channel more or less suddenly at a late period and left a bedding of gravel at the subsidence of that activity. In either case, if any ‘‘ paleolithic ” implements be found in that gravel, they must have been either washed in from older de- posits or dropped by man then living on the banks, fishing, canoeing, or crossing theice. The sand, 12 feet thick, with the bones, lying on that gravel, may have been deposited after a long or a short interval of time. It is not stated that the man imbedded in the upper part of this sand-bed had any palcoliths with him to prove his contempo- raneity with the deeper gravel, ‘“‘ known as ‘ballast,’ in which flint implements (? paloliths) are more commonly found” (p. 22), or with any really paleolithic deposit.
The author sketches the life and habits of a prehistoric Briton, with his “unpolished adze of flint” (pp. 14-17), or “‘a British paleolithic riverside man ;” and he takes for granted that, of the horizons in brick-earths, sands, and gravels, at which Mr. W. G. Smith and others have found paleoliths near London, some at . least must be the same as that of the sand in which the Tilbury man has been met with. For this supposed correlation there is really no ground. Mr. W. G. Smith expressed a hope (in the ‘Transactions of the Essex Field-Club,’ 1883, p. 142) that bodily remains of the river-drift men, who inhabited the area marked by the “ paleolithic floor” (stretching across the ancient surface of a great part of Middlesex and adjoining lands before the valleys were cut out to their present levels) would be some day found. ‘To this skeleton at Tilbury Sir Richard seems to beheve that he can point, as one of the desiderated men older than those of the caves, and “‘ who lived on the river-margins, and others who lived before the present rivers flowed” (W. G. Smith, loc. cit.).
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist, Ser. 5. Vol. xv. dD
66 Geological Society.
Whatever may be the geological value of the argument, we have to thank the author for the trouble he has taken to put on record all that he knows about this prehistoric man, and for the minute description and excellent plates (by Erxleben) of the calvarinm, lower jaw, and teeth (plates i., ii., and iii.), and the femur (pl. iv.) of this ancient representative of the aborigines formerly living on the old Thames bank.
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. November 5, 1884.—Prof. T. G. Bonney, D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. The following communications were read :—
1. “On a new Deposit of Pliocene Age at St. Erth, 15 miles east of the Land’s End, Cornwall.” By 8. V. Wood, Esq., F.G.S.
The deposit described in this paper occurs about 5 miles north- east of Penzance, and consists of a tenacious blue clay with shells, resting on sand, and passing upwards into a yellow unfossiliferous clay, which is overlain unconformably by the earth with angular fragments, under which the ancient beaches of the British Channel (with which beaches, however, the deposit now described has no connection) are buried. It has been excavated for the underlying sand at intervals during the last fifty years, but has been disused since 1881-82, when it was temporarily worked to supply the yellow part of the clay for the Penzance dock-works.
The author has got together, partly from correspondents in Corn- wall and partly from his own researches in clay consigned to him, upwards of 40 species of Mollusca, inclusive of a few of which only fragments have as yet occurred, and of several minute species. Among these, besides some that are apparently altogether new, are some particularly characteristic species of the Red Crag not known living, such as Cyprea (Trivia) aellana, Sow. ; Melampus pyrani- dalis, Sow.; and Nassa granulata, Sow. (or else NV. yranifera, Dujardin), as well as other characteristic Crag species that still live, but not north of the coast of Spain, such as Vurritella triplicata, Brocchi (7. inerassata, Sow.), and Ringicula buecinea, Brocchi.
The most interesting feature of the fauna, however, consists in the six species of Massa that the deposit has hitherto yielded, of which all but one, V. granulata, Sow. (or granifera, Dujardin), are unknown from any formation of Northern Europe, and occur, whether in the living or fossil state, only in the southern half of Europe*. One of these is Nassa mutabilis, Linné, which now lives
* N. conglobata, a species of a group near to that of surahilis, has occurred in the Red Crag; but, so far as the author is aware, neither that shell, nor
any of the group to which it belongs, has oecurred in any other formation of Northern Europe.
Geological Society. 67
throughout the Mediterranean, but outside that sea not north of Cadiz (lat. 36° 30’); and two others are new species of this exclusively southern mutabilis-group. Another seems to be a rare Italian Upper-Pliocene species of the reticulata-group, NV. reticostata, Bel- lardi ; while the sixth is the Lower Phocene and Upper-Miocene species, NV. serrata, Brocchi. This shell, in the variety of form it presents at St. Erth (where it is one of the most frequent shells), seems to connect the Red-Crag J. reticosa, Sow., with the Italian N. serrata, while the shorter forms of it are identical with the Italian Lower-Pliocene NV. emiliana, Mayer. ‘The fauna is altogether southern, no exclusively Arctic shell having as yet occurred in it.
The author regards the bed as clearly Pliocene, and inclines to the opinion that it is rather Newer than Older Pliocene ; that is to say, it is coeval with the Red Crag, but its affinities are more with the Pliocene of Italy than with the Phocene of the North-Sea region ; and this seems to show that during its deposition there was no communication between the Atlantic and the North Sea, except round the north of Britain, the refrigeration of the water by the nine degrees of latitude, through which Britain extends northwards from St. Erth, preventing the access of the Italian group of Nasse to that sea. This view is also strengthened by the absence of any close agreement between the fauna of St. Erth and that of the not far distant Pliocene of Normandy, the faunal affinities of both the older and newer parts of that Phocene (the Conglomerat a Térébratules and Marnes 4 Nassa, regarded by geologists as of the age of the Coralline and Red Crags respectively) being more with the North-Sea Crag than with the St.-Erth bed.
As regards the geography of the immediate neighbourhood during its accumulation, the bed is the deposit of a strait that joined the sea on the north of Cornwall (St. Ives Bay) to that on the south of the county (Mounts Bay); and which insulated the high ground of the Land’s-End district from the rest of Britain. The elevation of the shell-bearing part of the clay, as ascertained for the author by a set of levels run by Mr. Nicholas Whitley of Truro, C.E., who first brought the bed to public notice in the ‘Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, is 98 feet above mean-tide mark in the Hayle estuary, near to it, the surface of the ground being about 15 feet higher. Angular stones of small dimensions (none yet met with by the author exceeding 8 cubic inches) occur ocea- sionally in the clay along with the shells, in amount of about one pound to a hundredweight of the clay, indicating, apparently, the drift of coast-ice over the strait during the deposit; but the author has only noticed one rounded pebble in the clay he has searched through.
Dr. Gwyn Jerrreys expressed his regret that the author of this important communication was prevented by illness from being pre- sent at the meeting, and said that the paper exhibited indications of the great energy possessed by the author notwithstanding his bad state of health. Great credit was also due to Mr, Robert Bell for
68 Geological Soctety.
his share of the work. After careful examination Dr. Jeffreys re- cognized 50 species among the fossils obtained from the deposit at St. Erth; but from the number given by Mr. Wood he deducted 5 for duplicates, and one which he thought was not a mollusk. There were thus 44 or 45 species, out of which 11 or 12 are recent and 33 or 34 extinct. Of the latter 11 only are known to him from Ter- tiary deposits, 4 being of Miocene age, and all of them Pliocene. 22 species were unknown to him either as Tertiary or recent. For the accurate determination of the species the collection, when more complete, would have to ke critically compared with recent forms, and the necessary allowance made for that slight divergence which was always observable in the shells of species whose existence extended over a long period of time. Dr. Jeffreys thought that the author had not quite sufficient knowledge of recent Mollusca for his deter- minations to be thoroughly accurate. The list of shells needs a eareful re-comparison with the species contained in the Tertiary . collections of Europe.
He further remarked that no deposits of Glacial age have hitherto been found in the south of England. He was not clear whether the St. Erth deposit was of older Pliocene or possibly of Upper Miocene age. NVassa serrata, Broechi, was one of the few species in the list identical with Crag forms, namely Buccinum reticosum of Sowerby. The deposit did not seem to him to be connected with any Crag bed. A bed near Antibes, in the South of France, seemed to him to resemble the St. Erth deposit in many of its characters, and the mollusea of these two deposits should be critically compared.
Prof. Presrwicu said that this discovery of Mr. Searles Wood was the most interesting that had been made upon the southern eoast of England for many years. It was the first clear evidence from fossils of a depression in Cornwall since Paleozoic times, as the beds near St. Austell contain no organic remains. The high- and low- level beaches in Jersey and Guernsey are also unfossiliferous. He felt the same difficulty as Mr. Wood im correlating the beds in Brit- tany. The beds at Boseq d’Aubigny, in Normandy, present many points of analogy with those of St. Erth. There is the same pre- ponderance of Subapennine and Mediterranean species, with many Crag fossils, but the species are different.
Mr. Ernerrives thought that the author had been rather hurried in drawing his conclusions, and that more stratigraphical and geo- graphical evidence as to the distribution of the bed, and a careful survey of the neighbouring coast were requisite. He said that Mr. Solly had tried to make out the succession of the clays, and Mr. Bell had done much with the fossils, but no doubt many more fossils were yet to be found, and the Foraminifera, which are numerous, had not been determined, For his own part, he had much faith in Foraminifera, when properly determined, as a means of settling the age of such deposits.
Geological Society. 69
2. “The Cretaceous beds at Black Ven, near Lyme Regis, with some supplementary remarks on the Blackdown Beds.” By the Rev. W. Downes, B.A., F.G.S.
The author described a new exposure of the Cretaceous deposits at Black Ven, and stated that the Cliff-section measures 300 feet in height, of which the Lias occupies 200 feet, and the Cretaceous beds the remaining 100 feet. Of the latter the lower 25 feet consist of black loamy clay, passing up into yellowish-brown non-calcareous sands 75 feet thick, capped with chert-gravel. From one point in the clay the author obtained a few fossils, the most abundant being Lima parallela. The overlying sands, of ordinary Greensand type, ernicned no fossils, although traces of their former existence occurred in some abundance. The only species identifiable from the easts in loose sand was Cyprina cuneata. At about 50 feet, nearly in a straight line above the point in the Gault-clay where the author had obtained fossils, he discovered a small patch or nest of mostly fragmentary silicified fossils, with a somewhat ferruginous matrix. The most abundant species were Cyprina cuneata and Gervillia rostrata; the associated forms were Cytherea caperata, Trigonia scabricula, Cucullea glabra and fibrosa, Cardium proboscideum, Pecten orbicularis and quinquecostatus, Turritella granulata, Exogyra, Pha- sianella, Serpula, and Siphonia. Only one species is doubtfully common to the two horizons from which the fossils were procured, namely, Turritclla granulata.
The author regards the fauna of the sands, thus revealed, as approaching the Blackdown fauna, and the sands as the equivalent beds. The absence of Pectunculus umbonatus and sublevis might serve to indicate that the sands at Black Ven were Lower Blackdown; but Cyprina cuncata, at Blackdown, characterizes a bed inter- mediate between those containing the above two Pectunculi. The evidence, in the author’s opinion, seems to show an alternation of specific horizons, an inosculation due to changing littoral conditions, but with a general thinning-out to the westward, from which he concluded that the conditions of deposition were such that it will be impossible to recognize in the Cretaceous beds of the West of England the subdivisions of Gault and Upper Greensand which are so well marked to the eastward.
In conclusion, the author noticed some additions to his lst of Blackdown and Haldon acta published in the ‘ Quarterly Journal ’ for 1882.
3. “On some Recent Discoveries in the Submerged Forest of Torbay.” By D. Pidgeon, Esq., F.G.S.
The submerged forest of Torbay has been described by several veologists, among others by De la Beche, Godwin-Austen, and Pengelly. The latter, who has paid particular attention to the deposit, has inferred that a depression of 40 feet has taken place since the forest grew, and that the growth of the forest was at a
70 Miscellaneous.
period when the mammoth existed, a molar of that animal having been dredged at a depth of five or six fathoms, and having been apparently derived from the Forest-bed.
The submerged forest rests upon a considerable thickness of clay, evidently the soil in which the trees grew. The clay rests upon Trias, a breccia of Devonian fragments intervening in places. This breccia appears to be of glacial age.
The gales of the winter of 1883-84 caused the exposure of con- siderable areas of the clay between tide-marks ; and in one place, resting upon the breccia, two aggregations of rolled trap pebbles were found. These pebbles were shown to have probably served as smelting-hearths. In their neighbourhood an ingot of copper, a fragment of a second, some tin slag, a piece of glass, flint imple- ments, and other articles were found, together with remains of piles driven into the ground. These traces of human work apparently belong to the bronze age. In Goodrington Bay pewter vessels, apparently of Roman date, were found by the writer’s son in a bed 10 feet below high-tide mark, or at a lower level than that of the bronze-age relics.
After referring to the occurrence of some estuarine shells (Sero- bicularia, Hydrobia, Littorina, and Melumpus) in the clay near Redcliffe Towers, at the level where similar mollusca now exist (an oc- currence which may, however, be due to a recent mixing of deposits), the author pointed out that as the coast is known to have undergone no change of level for nearly 2000 years, it is unlikely that it can have been raised 40 feet, and again depressed to the same extent, since the beginning of the bronze period, not more than about fifteen centuries earlier, It is more probable that the clay bed was deposited in a shallow mere or marsh, of land-water kept back by the sea-beach, which was then some hundreds of feet further to sea- ward, and that the forest, which consisted chiefly of willows, grew on the marsh. The mammoth tooth may have been derived from an older deposit, all other remains of mammalia obtained from the Forest-bed belonging to animals still existing.
MISCELLANEOUS. Contributions to the Biology of Spiders. By Dr. Frrepricu Daut.
In the first part of the next (ninth) volume of the ‘ Vierteljahrs- schrift fiir wissenschaftliche Philosophie’ an attempted represen- tation of the psychical processes in spiders will be published by me. As certain points in the work may also be interesting to zoologists, I venture here to communicate very briefly the chief results of my investigations, referring to the above-mentioned memoir for further details and proofs. In that memoir I have first of all treated of the sensorial perceptions and then passed to the higher mental life.
Miscellaneous. 71
The sense of sight is imperfect in spiders because all accommoda- tion seems to be deficient. At a short distance Attus arcuatus, BL., regards a ball of paper borne on a fine wire, or in fact anything that moves, asafly. At a distance of about 1-2 centim., on the contrary, it is quite able to distinguish a fly from a bee of the same size. The geometrical spiders, in consequence of this short- sightedness, are almost exclusively dependent on the sense of touch, which certainly is developed in an astonishing manner.
Meta seqgmentata, Bl, Zilla w-notata, &c., not only feel that an object has got into their net, but they can even feel upon which radius it is, when they pull upon this radius from the centre, If they have captured a fly, and a second gets into the net at the moment, they must go to the central point or to the radius to which the new fly is suspended in order to find it, even though it may be in their immediate vicinity.
The senses of smell and hearing are also well developed. I have to add to my previous statements * that Hpeira patagiata, Bl., for example, can even distinguish different odours. Thus the smell of oil of turpentine is much more disagreeable to it than that of ammonia.
Among instinctive proceedings I have especially observed the manufacture of the geometrical web more particularly, First the outer framework is spun; then, alternately from different sides, the rays, and simultaneously with these the round shelter in the middle ; then a spiral extending nearly to the outer margin, which gives the whole firmness, and serves as a bridge during the further work ; and finally a spiral thread, set with little drops, from the outer framework nearly to the middle shelter. During the making of the last-mentioned portion the dry spiral is for the most part destroyed. Some geometrical spiders, as is well known, complete their web and then lie in wait for prey upon the central shelter, sitting with the head downwards. (The webs are more or less vertical, because otherwise an insect would too easily drop out of them.) Others keep, at least in the daytime, in a dwelling placed near the web, connected by a signal-thread with the central shelter of the web ; and others leaye one sector unwoven for the signal-thread. Among the latter is Zilla w-notata, Bl., which I particularly made use of for my observations. It is remarkable that the first web that a young spider of this species prepares 1s always perfectly geometrical, and that its dwelling-place at first is the central shelter. The second web in rare instances already shows the defective sector. Generally, however, this form first appears after the preparation of several complete geometrical webs, although, as a rule, before the first change of skin. Sometimes we find as an intermediate step a complete geometrical web with a dwelling beside it. The transi- tion to the second form is, however, very rarely quite smooth. It can, however, by no means be dependent upon external conditions or upon changes of the organs. We have before us here, therefore,
* Zool, Anz. 1883, p. 267, and Arch. f. micr. Anat. Bd. xxiv. p. 1 (Aan, Mag. Nat. Hist. Noy. 1884, p. 829).
72 Miscellaneous.
a passage through earlier stages of the development of instinct, such as has long been known in the development of organs.
It has often been asserted that the geometrical spiders do not repair old webs. This, however, is true only in a limited sense. The outer framework and some of the radii which have already become nearly free from transverse threads are probably always used again by Zilla w-notata and others. The restis gathered up, worked into a ball with the mouth, and thrown away. If the spider removes a lifeless object from the web, and damages the latter in so doing, it certainly sometimes reproduces the destroyed portion of the framework, the radii, and the centralshelter. If we interrupt a spider in the formation of its web, by tearing away a portion of it with the corresponding part of the outer framework, all will be completed up to the part that has remained uninjured. In this case the completion of the framework is especially interesting, as this unaccustomed work is not usually successfully performed at once. Here we see very distinctly how reflection comes into play. IT was still better able to ascertain reflection, or, what is the same thing, actual inference, in the case of Attus arcuatus, Bl., when IL offered it flies touched with oil of turpentine. Sometimes the spider despised the species of fly employed (Homalomyia canicularis, L.), whilst it attacked other insects (e. g. Chironomus tendens, Fab.) just as before. This spider also draws similar conclusions in those cases in which it cannot overcome insects in consequence of their chitinous armour being too hard. These it usually attacks only once, and is then for a long time forewarned. Dangerous insects, however, such as small bees, it avoids, without having seen their sting. Here there- fore we have an instinctive dread. Bee-like flies are equally dreaded.
I have also attempted to give a new explanation of the secondary sexual differences of many spiders, which are to be ascribed to changes by means of sexual selection.—Zool. Anz. no. 180, p. 591.
On the Classificatory Position of Hemiaster elongatus. To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
GENTLEMEN,— You were good enough to admita reply on the partof Mr. Percy Sladen and myself toa criticism of Prof. Sven Lovén, upon the classificatory position of Hemiaster elongatus, nobis, in your number for October last. I have received, in consequence, a very cordial reply from the Professor, in which he acknowledges that the form is not a species of Puleostoma, and points out how these latter forms of Hemiaster depart from the Mesozoic types of Desor, Wright, and Cotteau, in the extension of the madrevorite and in the dimi- nution in the number of the ovarial pores. He suggests that we should place our species in a new genus. ‘The consideration of this proposed splitting up of the genus Hemiaster we must defer for a while, for it is a matter that concerns M. de Loriol also; and, more- over, we can hardly determine the propriety of the step until we have completed our description of the Echinoidea of the Tertiaries of Sind.
Yours &«@., Dec, 1, 1884. P. Martin Duncan,
Miscellaneous. 73
Ou the Development of the Spongille. By Dr. A. Gorre,
The following statements relate to the Spongilla fluviatilis of the harbour of Rostock, the developmental forms of which haye been investigated both intact and in sections.
The segmentation leads to the formation of a sterroblastula, the cells of which are not placed radially around a central point, but irregularly. in several layers, and at first present no regular distinc- tion of sizes. The latter makes its appearance comparatively late, when the peripheral cells in one hemisphere diminish rapidly and close up into the form of a membrane. Gradually a thin cylinder- epithelium is developed from this, and it completely surrounds the remaining coarsely cellular mass. Thus is produced a completely closed sterrogastrula, with an epithelial ectoderm and a moderate endoderm.
The cells of the former gradually become smaller, and it is at last ciliated. In the middle of the endoderm a cavity is produced by the separation and not by the fusion of the cells, and this is enlarged towards the broader end of the oval gastrula, and finally passes into it altogether. By this means the endoderm in this anterior or superior hemisphere (according to the subsequent position of the larva) becomes a thin loose layer applied to the ectoderm, arching over the cavity and attached by its margin to the posterior thick mass of endoderm.
In this state the larva escapes, and after a time attaches itself by the anterior end. In this process the ectoderm is ruptured, and the amoeboid endodermal cells, reticulately united, attach themselves to the supporting body. By a simple continuation of this process the whole endoderm spreads into a flat cake, upon which the torn and already partially detached ectoderm rests loosely like a mantle; or the larva, after the first attachment, lies down upon the whole of its side-length, so that a part of the ectoderm comes to lie under the cake of endoderm. ‘The whole organism then usually slips away from this basal disk of endoderm, leaving it to dissolve ; in other cases it disappears by atrophy of the endodermal mass. The super- ficial ectodermal mantle, below the margin of which, all round, the attachment by means of the amceboid endodermal cells takes place, usually breaks up into larger and smaller pieces which are ex- foliated ; or it disappears by atrophy, the cells and nuclei becoming indistinct and finally disappearing, so that the underlying endoderm is freely exposed.
About the time of the escape of the larva (but the sequence of all the developmental phenomena of the Sponqillw is remarkably variable), the transformation of the endoderm with the excentric cavity commences. By the flattening and extension of the cells of its
Ann, & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. xv. 6
74 Miscellaneous.
conyex portion, the margin of the latter glides back over the more coarsely cellular endodermal mass, and coats it, just as an ectoderm does the endoderm, in a sterrogastrula. Possibly this is only ap- parent, the peripheral cells of the posterior mass merely joining themselves to the anterior convex layer by a corresponding meta- morphosis. At any rate the endoderm of the larva, shortly before its attachment, consists of a sacciform thin layer posteriorly en- closing the coarsely cellular mass, and anteriorly the cavity ; at its inner Rachice it secretes a distinct cuticle, by which it is always recognizable. Its cells also provide for the ‘above-described ad- hesion of the larva, especially in the periphery of the flat disk ; from this marginal zone the layer becomes condensed by the ap- proximation of its loosely reticulate mass of cells beneath the yanishing ectoderm, to form an epithelium as the cuticle of the sponge. ‘The osculum and the pores originate in exactly the same way as enlarged spaces between the cells.
During the attachment of the larva the whole arch of the endoder- mal cavity becomes compressed, and, on the other hand, the inner endodermal mass advances into it, until it disappears with the exception of a fissure-like space between the cuticle and that mass, extending more or less distinctly over the whole upper surface of the sponge. In the middle of the still disciform body, however, this fissure-space becomes enlarged into a deep round pit beneath the strained cuticle by the depression of its bottom formed by the above- mentioned inferior parenchyma. This cavity becomes lined by some free cells with an epithelium resembling the cuticle, and acquires one of the above-mentioned apertures in its covering (cuticle). Around it there are then produced some similar pits, in part also furnished with similar apertures, of which the osculum is characterized by its margin being elevated like that of a crater. Although all these pits originally communicate with each other as depressions of the sub- epidermal fissure-space, they are afterwards entirely or partially separated from each other by their linings, which extend up to the cuticle (afferent and efferent canal-sy stem).
In the meantime, however, the flagellate chambers are produced in the parenchymatous endodermal mass. They are genetically quite independent of the above cavities, as their separated rudiments already exist in the larvee. These foundations originate from parti- cular endodermal cells, around the primitive riucleus of which several new small nuclet are produced without any recognizable phe- nomena of division. Corresponding to these nuclei buds of the mother-cells are produced, and from these cell-aggregates, which arrange themselves in capsules and usually coalesce in groups to form more or less closed hollow spheres. These spheres, which are afterwards ciliated within, unite, sometimes directly with the above- described cavities, sometimes with inward diverticula from them, or with irregular canals, which, like the cavities, originate as inter- cellular spaces lined with pavement epithelium, but independently
Miscellaneous, 75
in the parenchyma of the endoderm, and at once enter into commu- nication with them.
This parenchyma, or the sitidle non-epithelial cell-mass of the sponge, has essentially the same structure as in the larva; the rounded or stellate cells are suspended, by means of their mutual attachments, in a fluid, which at first also oceupied the great endo- dermal cavity and its processes, but afterwards becomes somewhat condensed within the tissue, while, in the cavities which open out- wards, it is displaced by water. The spzcwles, which always origi- nate intracellularly, are also already present in the larva.
A brief recapitulation of the described facts shows that—
1. The bilamellar embryo is a sterrogastrula, which afterwards acquires an endodermal cavity.
2. The ectoderm entirely disappears during the attachment of the larva ; the future sponge, with all its parts, proceeds entirely from the endoderm.
3. This early divides into a peripheral layer, which becomes an epidermis in place of the ectoderm, and a compact interior mass, the foundation of all the other tissues.
4. In the latter the incurrent and exhalent cavities and the flagellate chambers, as well as their linings, originate separately without any common foundation, sothat the distinction of an entero- derm from a mesoderm is not possible.
5. The Spongille, as indeed all the sponges, originate from “bilamellar” ancestors ; but at present develop their whole organi- zation from a single germ-plate.—Zoologischer Anzeiger, December 15, 1884, p. 676.
Note on the Reproduction of the Monotremata.
To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
GuntLEMEN,—A propos of Sir Richard Owen’s paper in the Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. for December last “* On the Impregnated Uterus and on the Uterine Ova of Krhidna hystriv,” accompanied by a copy of a letter from the ‘Sydney Herald’ announcing Mr. Caldwell’s most inter- esting confirmation of Owen's researches by anatomical proof of the oviparous reproduction of the Monotremata, I beg to send you the following extract from the ‘Illustrated Melbourne Post’ of Sep- tember D4, 1864, which was reproduced in the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1865, p- 9431 :—
“Bags of Ornithorhynchus,
‘ About ten months ago a platy pus (Ornithorhynchus poradoxus) was captured, and is in possession of Mr. Rumley, gold-receiver, of Woods Point. It has laid two eggs, which were white, soft, and without shell. It is to be regretted that no opportunity was afforded
76 Miscellaneous.
of examining them more minutely, as they were soon afterwards thrown away. It has hitherto been a matter of dispute among naturalists as to whether this extraordinary animal, the connecting- link between birds and mammals, produced living young or whether it laid eggs. It may now, however, be considered as a settled question. [Valeat quantum! E, N.]|”
Tomas SouTHWELL.
Norwich, December 5, 1884.
A Scorpion from the Silurian Formation of Sweden. By Dr. G. Linpsrrom.
The remarkable discovery has been made of a fossil scorpion in the Upper Silurian (Ludlow) of the island of Gotland. The specimen is well preserved and shows clearly the delicate brown or yellowish- brown chitinous cuticle, compressed and wrinkled by the pressure of overlying beds; the cephalothorax, the abdomen with seven dorsal plates, and the tail composed of six segments, of which the last con- tracts and becomes pointed to form the poison-dart. The sculpture of the surface is exactly as in recent scorpions, and consists of tuber- cles and longitudinal ridges. One of the stigmata is visible on the right side, proving clearly that the animal respired air, as, indeed, its whole organization demonstrates that it lived upon dry land.
In this scorpion, named Palwophonus nuncius by MM. Torell and Lindstriém, we have therefore the most ancient known terres- trial animal; the dragon-flies, which hitherto claim the highest antiquity, having been found in the Devonian strata of Canada.
In the construction of this scorpiou a very important feature is observable, furnished by the four pairs of thoracic legs, which are stout and pointed like those of the embryos of many other Tra- cheata, and of forms like Campodea. This form of leg no longer exists in the fossil scorpions of the Carboniferous formation, in which those appendages resemble those of living scorpions.—Comptes Rendus, December 1, 1884, p. 984.
[Dr. Hinde has kindly informed us that, according to letters re- ceived by him from Dr. Lindstrém, a fossil scorpion was obtained last year by Dr. Hunter, of Carluke, from the Upper Ludlow beds of Lesmahago, in Lanarkshire. The specimen was sent to Mr. B. N. Peach in Edinburgh, but owing to that gentleman’s ill-health he was unable to do anything with it, until the receipt of a photo- graph from Dr. Lindstr6m showed that the Scotch and Swedish specimens agreed so closely that they might well be referred to the same species, certainly to the same genus. Dr. Lindstrém’s example shows the dorsal surface of the animal, Dr. Hunter’s the ventral surface; the latter is a female, while the Swedish specimen is in- ferred to be probably a male. |
THE ANNALS
AND
MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. [FIFTH SERIES. ]
No. 86. FEBRUARY 1885.
1X.—The Origin of the Fauna and Flora of