cheap in France, when dissolved in any alkali (the urine of cows being good enough) and applied in the same manner described above, has also given good results. A mixture composed of lime and sulphur boiled in water at the rate of about five pounds lime and five pounds sulphur to one gallon of water, and applied when hot, has been found good. Alkalies seem to invigorate the vines, but do not affect the lice. They are also too costly. Salt.- Vines on lands strongly impregnated with salt have been found to resist the attacks of the lice. Acids generally are neutralized by the lime which most soils contain. Sulphur has been. thoroughly tried without any good results, either upon the leaf-lice or root-lice. Sulphuretted hydrogen.- They have tried to pump this into the soil, but the pumps always break and no one would think of going to such trouble here. Sulphate of Iron is of no account. Sulphate of Copper destroys the roots. Numerous other chemicals have been experimented with, but with very little or no success, and they are besides not applicable on a large scale. Irrigation and Submersion have been pretty thoroughly tested, and it is doubtful, even where they can be employed, whether they have any other effect than that of invigorating the vines, as the lice are, many of them, found alive after a submergence of months. These methods must be considered conservatives rather than curatives. RÉSUMÉ OF THE INSECT'S HISTORY.-We have had in this country, from time immemorial, an insect attacking our native vines, either forming galls on the leaves or gall-like excrescences on the roots. This insect is polymorphic, as many others of its family are known to be. It also exists in two types, the one, which may be termed radicicola, living on the roots, while the other, which may be termed gallæcola, dwells in galls on the leaves. The latter is found more especially on the Clinton and its allies, while the former is found on all varieties, but flourishes best on vines belonging to the vinifera species. The gall-inhabiting type was noticed and imperfectly described in 1856, but the root-inhabiting * I have been able to trace them with absolute certainty as far back as 1845, for in the herbarium of Dr. Engelmann is a specimen of wild riparia gathered in this State in that year, the leaves of which are disfigured by the very same gall. type, being less conspicuous, was unknown in this country till last year. Such an insect is very readily transported from one country to another on grape roots, seedlings, etc., and just as our Apple, root-louse (Eriosoma lanigera Hausm.) was imported into Europe towards the close of the last century, so we find that our Grapelouse was similarly imported, in all probability within the last decade. The mode of transport will become all the more intelligible when I state that M. Signoret showed me, last July, the yet living progeny of some lice which he had placed in a tightlycorked glass tube the year before; and that he had managed to keep a few alive for study through the siege of Paris up to the time mentioned. Nothing would be more natural than its introduction at Bordeaux, where M. Laliman has, for a number of years, been assiduous in the cultivation and trial of our different American vines. Or it might have been introduced at the nurseries of the Audebert Bros., near Tarascon,* where all sorts of American plants have been cultivated; and, if I mistake not, M. Planchon with commendable zeal, has so thoroughly sifted the history of the subject in France that he can trace the first invasion, with tolerable certainty, to a point near this place, Tarascon. It doubtless existed in France a few years before its injuries attracted attention, and the first notice of its work was made in the vineyard of M. de Penarvan, at Ville-neuve-les-Avignon, in 1863. The scourge soon increased and spread, and in 1868 and 1869 acquired such dimensions as thoroughly to alarm the great grape-growing districts of beautiful France. At first all sorts of hypotheses were put forth as to its cause. Some book-worms even thought they had found in this root-louse the Phtheir of the ancient Greeks, but the intelligent labors of M. Planchon dispelled all such illusions, and and proved that the Phtheir of the ancients was a true bark-louse (Dactylopius longispinus Targ.) of a totally different nature and still existing in the Crimea.† *M. Laliman, in the essay already mentioned (p. 63), shows that this nursery has not existed for nearly fifteen years; but this fact does not preclude the possibility of the louse having been first introduced there. It would only indicate, if the spread of the disease can be traced from that point, that it existed in France, without attracting attention, at an earlier epoch than is generally supposed. † See an Essay entitled La Phthiriose on Pédiculaire de la Vigne chez les Anciens. Bulletin de la Soc. des Agr. de France, July, 1870. In this manner our root-louse was known and studied in a foreign land before its presence was even suspected in this-its native country. CONCLUSION-NO NEED OF UNNECESSARY ALARM.— Knowledge of the facts I have here brought forth need not alarm the grapegrower any more than correct knowledge of some indisposition, hitherto incomprehensive and consequently uncured, should alarm. the human patient. It was only a few years ago that our eyes were opened to the true character of the entozoon known as Triching spiralis, and there can be little doubt but that previous to our knowledge of this parasite many a death occasioned by it was attributed to other unknown causes. It may not be more easy to cure the disease now than it was formerly, but we are, by understanding its nature, enabled easily to guard against and prevent it. "Full knowledge of the truth," says Helmholz, "always brings with it the cure for the damage which imperfect knowledge may occasion." The Phylloxera has always existed on our vines, and those varieties which in the past have best withstood its attacks will be very likely to do so in the future. The presence of a few lice on such varieties need cause no fear, for the idea of ever entirely exterminating such an insect from the country must be perfectly utopian, and all we can do is to watch and more particularly care for those varieties that most easily succumb. In the future, the vineyardist will be enabled, by the revelations here made, to trace to a definite cause many a failure which has hitherto been wrapped in conjecture and mystery. In thus calling the attention of the grape growing community to this interesting little insect, which is sapping the roots of their vines, my intention is to do good and not cause unnecessary consternation. Let me hope that others may be induced to study the microscopic plague and thus not only assist to fill the gaps yet occurring in its natural history, but help us to become better masters of it. Only those who have witnessed the fearful havoc it has made abroad, where in three years it caused a loss of 25,000,000 francs in the single department of Vaucluse, France. can fully appreciate its importance and its power, under favorable circumstances, to do harm. I must remind those who live outside of Missouri, that my observations in this country have been confined to different parts of this State and apply more especially to this portion of the Mississippi Valley. The insect occurs, however, very generally over the country east of the Mississippi river, even into Canada ; and there are strong indications that it produces similarly injurious effects elsewhere. To give a single example:- according to the records, most of the vineyards on Staten Island which were flourishing in 1861, and which were composed principally of Catawba, had failed in 1866, and Mr. G. E. Meissner, of Bushberg, who then owned a vineyard on that island, informs me that he had noticed the nodosities, and that the roots of the dying vines had wasted away.* I cannot conclude without publicly expressing my indebtedness to Messrs. Lichtenstein and Planchon, of Montpellier, France, for the cordial and generous manner in which they gave me every facility for studying the insect there, and witnessing experiments in the field. REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. RECENT DISCOVERIES IN ORNITHOTOMY.-The authors' courtesy places two very notable papers on our table. I. Prof. Morse's embryological studies † have furnished one of the most important contributions ever offered in this country to our knowledge of the structure and development of birds. His entirely original researches, conducted with scrupulous care, in the most candid spirit, not only confirm the late determinations of Gegenbaur and other European anatomists, but take a long step beyond. We have from time to time been apprised of the author's progress in the investigation, and since its close have given the subject the closest scrutiny. In stating the points we believe that the author has established, we must also indicate those that we hold to be still questionable. Prof. Morse finds four tarsal bones. Three of these have been very generally recognized of late, although rejected or at most not *Since the above was written. I have listened to an essay on Grapes, by Mr. P. Manny, of Freeport, Stephenson county, Illinois. In this essay, which was read before the Illinois State Horticultural Society, the writer states that his Delaware, Iowa and Salem vines lose their lower roots. He attributes this loss of roots to the tenacity of the soil (though more likely owing to unseen root-lice) and has remedied it in a measure by grafting on Clinton roots. On the Carpus and Tarsus of Birds. By EDWARD S. MORSE, Ph. D. Ann. Lyc. Nat. Hist., N. Y., X, 1872. fully accepted, by such an eminent authority, for instance, as Owen, whom the author very properly arraigns for his unphilosophic handling of the carpal-tarsal homologies. They are two near bones, anchylosing together, and with the tibia, serving to form the characteristic avian bitrochlear malleoli; and one far bone which unites with the metatarsals. For these Prof. Morse accepts the determinations implied in Gegenbaur's nomenclature, calling them tibiale, fibulare and centrale (astragalus, calcaneum and naviculare). Many interesting details of the form, time and mode of fusion, etc., in different species are given. The fourth bone is a "new" one, the recognition of which as an integral element of the avian tarsus we owe to Prof. Morse. Authors have described a socalled "process of the astragalus" in certain birds, and it has been stated that the astragalus of higher vertebrates represents the tibiale and the intermedium (of reptiles), connate; but it remained for Prof. Morse to determine that a certain "pre-tibial" bone of a species of heron, noted in Prof. Wyman's manuscript, now published, as finally uniting the astragalus to form a "process" identical with that described by Huxley, is a distinct tarsal element which, for anything appearing to the contrary, must be identified with the reptilian intermedium. We consider this view entirely reasonable-in fact, we know of no other warrantable conclusion from our present data, and we are thus prepared to adopt all of Prof. Morse's views respecting the composition of the avian tarsus, without reserve or qualification. If we must think that he has not been equally successful in determining the structure of the carpus, we are at least prepared to show cause for our lacking faith in some of his conclusions. Respecting this segment the author writes: "In the fore limb or wing there are at least four carpal bones, two in the proximal series, and two in the distal series. When more than four carpals occur, as in the" etc. The two of the near series are those that persist free in the adult carpus, well known as "scaphoid " (or "scapholunar") and "cuneiform," or, in better nomenclature, radiale and ulnare. The two far bones come of Prof. Morse's resolution of the so-called "epiphysis of the metacarpal into two carpal elements, one capping the mid-metacarpal, the other the annularis. Since the metacarpals of higher vertebrates, excepting that of the pollex, are well known to lack a proximal epiphysis, the part in question was early determined to belong to the carpus, |