STING OF NETTLE, MAGNIFIED.
The nettles of foreign countries have much greater poisonous properties. The effects of incautiously handling some East Indian species are terrible. The first pain is compared with the pain inflicted by a red-hot iron; this increases and continues for days. A French botanist was once stung by one of these nettles in the Botanical Gardens of Calcutta; he says the pain so affected the lower part of his face that he feared lock-jaw. He did not get rid of the pain till nine days had expired. Dr. Hooker saw gigantic nettles in Nepal, one was a shrubby species growing fifteen feet high, called by the natives mealum-ma. They had so great a dread of it that Dr. Hooker could hardly persuade them to help him to cut it down. He gathered several specimens without allowing any part to touch his skin, but the "scentless effluvium" was so powerful as to cause unpleasant effects for the rest of the day. "The sting produces violent inflammation, and to punish a child with mealum-ma is the severest Lepcha threat." Then there is the nettle of Timor, or devils-leaf, the sting of which sometimes produces fatal effects. Tree-nettles in Australia are occasionally found as much as twenty-five feet in circumference. There are three species of stinging nettles in this country, the great nettle, the small nettle, and the Roman nettle; the first two are very common, the last very rare indeed. There is a curious story told of the introduction of this last species into this country. You may believe as much as you please of it. It is said that before the Romans under Julius Cæsar thought it prudent to come to England—of the coldness of which they had heard a good deal—they procured some seeds of the Roman nettle, intending to sow them when they landed in this country; so when they landed at Romney, in Kent, they sowed the seeds. "And what use, papa," asked Willy, "would nettles be to them during the cold weather in England?" Well, they meant to nettle themselves, and so chafe their skins so as to enable them to bear the cold better. And tough skins they must have had, for the poison of the Roman nettle is much more severe than that of the two common species. Camden, I believe, tells the story; as I said, you may believe it or not. Do you see that tortoiseshell butterfly hovering near the nettles? Its larva was a greenish-black caterpillar with yellow stripes, and it lived, when in that state, entirely on the leaves of the nettle; the larvæ also of other kinds of butterflies feed on this plant, as the admiral butterfly, and the peacock butterfly. I have eaten the young shoots of the common nettles in the spring of the year; they do not make a bad substitute for spinach.
LARVA, CHRYSALIS, AND INSECT OF THE SMALL TORTOISE-SHELL BUTTERFLY. (Vanessa urticæ.)
How prettily the yellow flags skirt the pool; there, you see, is the common branched bur-reed, with its sword-like leaves and round heads of flowers; a little way in the pool is the pretty arrowhead with its large conspicuous arrow-shaped leaves and flesh-coloured flowers, both leaves and flowers standing several inches out of the water. In the water, too, I see the brown leaves of the perfoliate pondweed; they are almost transparent, and look when dry something like gold-beater's skin. I see also the cylindrical tufts of the horn-wort with its bristle-like leaves often several times forked. It grows entirely under the water. See also a few rose-coloured spikes of the amphibious persicaria.
YOUNG CRISTATELLA, MAGNIFIED.
Such are some of the most conspicuous plants near our pond. It looks likely to contain some fresh-water polyzoa, than which there are few more beautiful tenants of the water. Here is a young one on this leaf of persicaria; do you see it? I put it into my bottle. Now look, it has lately been hatched from that round egg with curious hooks around its margin. It is called Cristatella. At present there are only three individuals in the outer heart-shaped covering, but additional ones will bud out of these three, and others from these last, till the whole colony may number as many as sixty individuals, being then fully an inch long; the mouth of each is placed between the tentacles, which have upon them, running down each side, a great number of very minute hairs or cilia, to which, you may remember, I have alluded before. The colour of the colony is yellowish white, sometimes brownish white. It is a most exquisite little animal, or rather colony of animals; for, though there are several creatures in one house, as it were, each is separate and independent of its neighbour. You will often find other forms of polyzoa in clear ponds and mill-pools; sometimes you would suppose you were looking at a mass of sponge, as in the case of Alcyonella, or the creeping root of some weed, as in Plumatella and Fredericella; but when the sponge-like mass or rootlets are placed in water you will observe numbers of little animals to show their heads and tentacles above the mass or from the little holes in the creeping rootlets. Ah! what have we here? Do you see those long narrow ribbons of floating grass about a yard from us? Do you notice some of the ribbons to be bent and folded here and there? Between each fold we shall find an egg of a newt. Let me get this bit of grass ribbon. There, I unfold it where it is creased, and you see a transparent glairy substance, within which is a round yellowish egg. Here again is another. The leaves of persicaria, also, are often selected by the female newt for the purpose of depositing her eggs. Here you see is a leaf folded up; between the folds is another newt's egg. I have never seen the newt in the act of laying her eggs, but, I believe, it may readily be observed by placing a female newt any time during the months of May and June in a vessel of water with some leaves of persicaria. Mr. Bell says, "The manner in which the eggs are deposited is very interesting and curious. The female, selecting some leaf of an aquatic plant, sits as it were upon its edge, and folding it by means of her two hind feet, deposits a single egg in the duplicature of the folded part of the leaf, which is thereby glued most securely together, and the egg is thus effectually protected from injury. As soon as the female has in this way deposited a single egg, she quits the leaf, and after the lapse of a short time seeks another, there to place another egg." The eggs undergo various changes, and the animal, at an early part of its life, has a pair of delicate organs on each side of the neck; these are rudimentary gills, by means of which the little creature breathes. In its very early condition these gills are simple lobes; I ought to say that the first pair of lobes serve the purpose of holders by which the little creature attaches itself to leaves and other things. But when it is about three weeks old the gills have many leaf-like divisions, and look like beautiful feathered fringes. The circulation of blood in these gills may be readily seen under the microscope, and will be surveyed with the greatest delight. By-and-bye the animal buds out its four legs and looses the gills; they do not drop off, but become absorbed; hitherto it has carried on its respiration or breathing by means of these gills, but how does it breathe now that it has lost them? The lungs in the inside of the body have been gradually growing larger and fit for breathing the atmospheric air; for newts, when arrived at their full or perfect state, are, you know, chiefly terrestrial creatures, and breathe by means of their lungs. When young they are in a fish state, and breathe the air contained in the water exactly as fish do. If you will look at a pond where newts abound, you will see the old ones constantly coming to the top of the water, gulping down a mouthful of air and then returning to the bottom. Full-grown newts do not frequent the water excepting for the sake of laying their eggs. The young ones are ready for leaving the water in the autumn, but I have often obtained young newts with their gills fully developed in the depth of winter. Probably these had been hatched late in the summer and had not time to grow their lungs, so had to keep to their gills and lead the life of a fish during the winter.
"People often call newts 'askers,' papa," said Willy, "and the lads of the village always kill them when they catch them; they say their bite is poisonous." I am sorry to say they do; but it is an error to suppose their bite is poisonous. You have yourself handled many specimens, and I am sure you never saw one attempt to bite. I do not believe their small teeth and weak jaws could pierce the skin. Four species of newts have been described as occurring in this country—the two common kinds are the smooth newt and the warty newt. I think I once found the palmated newt near Eyton; the male of this species is distinguished from other newts by having the hind legs webbed and by a thin filament or thread at the end of the tail.