* * * * *
_Ancient Wood Engraving_ (Vol. iii., p. 277.).--The subject of THE
HERMIT OF HOLYPORT'S question is an engraving of the "Pinax" of Cebes, a
Theban philosopher who wrote circa A. M. 3600, and who, in his
allegorical work of that name, described human life under the guise of a
picture.
This information is for the HERMIT'S especial benefit, as I suppose it
will be old news to most of your correspondents.
I have an old Dutch edition of the "Pinax" (Gerard de Jager, 1683),
bound in vellum, with the _Enchiridion_ and other works of Epictetus;
the frontispiece of which is the fellow to the Hermit's engraving.
F. I.
Bradford.
* * * * *
_Vegetating Insects_ (Vol. iii., p. 166.).--As the Query of MR. MANLEY
in No. 70. has not been answered, I beg to say that Vegetating Insects
are not uncommon both in New South Wales and New Zealand. The insect is
the caterpillar of a large brown moth, and in New South Wales is
sometimes found six inches long, buried in the ground, and the plant
above ground about the same length: the top, expanded like a flower, has
a brown velvety texture. In New Zealand the _plant_ is different, being
a single stem from six to ten inches high: its apex, when in a state of
fructification, resembles the club-headed bulrush in miniature. When
newly dug up, and divided longitudinally, the intestinal canal is
distinctly visible, and frequently the hairs, legs, and mandibles.
Vegetation invariably proceeds from the nape of the neck; from which it
may be inferred, that the insect, in crawling to the place where it
inhumes itself, prior to its metamorphosis, while burrowing in the light
vegetable soil, gets some of the minute seeds of the fungus between the
scales of its neck, from which in its sickening state it is unable to
free itself, and which consequently, being nourished by the warmth and
moisture of the insect's body then lying motionless, vegetates, and not
only impedes the process of change in the chrysalis, but likewise
occasions the death of the insect. The New South Wales specimen is
called "Sphæria Innominata," that of New Zealand "Sphæria Robertsii;"
both named, I believe, by Sir W. J. Hooker. In some specimens of the New
Zealand kind now before me, the _bodies_ of the insects are in their
normal state, but the legs, &c., are gone.
Both specimens are figured and described in the _Tasmanian Journal_,
vol. i. No. 4.