316 Miscellaneous. leporina was picked both on Loclinagar and on Cairn Toul ; Carex vaginata was found on every hill in the Braemar district ; Woodsia hyperborea was gathered in Glen Isla, Glen Phee, Clova, and on 13eu Lawers ; Luzula arcuata was seen on all the lofty summits in the vicinity of Ben-na-Muich-Dhui ; Mulyedium atpinum was detected in considerable quantity on Lochnagar ; also a beautiful variety of Hie-racium alpinum with remarkably long leaves and involucres covered with long white silky hairs : it is H. alpinum var. longifolium of ' Flora Silesia.' In the vicinity of Ballater, and also in Glen Tilt, Equisetum umbrosum grew in profusion. The sides of Loch Etichan and the rocks near Loch Aven were covered with numerous alpine varieties of Hieracia, presenting remarkable transition forms : among them were H. alpinum, Halleri, nigrescens, Lawsoni, &c. Orobus niger was gathered at the Pass of Killiecrankie. Dr. Balfour then made some remarks on the progress of vegetation in the vicinity of Edinburgh and the injury done by the late frost, in the course of which he stated that Galanthus nivalis was in flower in the Botanic Garden, and Eranthis hyemalis in Dr. Neill's garden on the 10th inst. MISCELLANEOUS. THE COMMON FLEA (PULEX IRRITANS). Everybody knows that common domestic insect, the flea ; but it ia not everybody who knows that it undergoes a series of changes aa .singular as those of the butterfly or beetle ; being first a minute egg* then a long slender worm-like larva, then an inactive pupa inclosed within a cocoon spun by the larva ; and lastly, the perfect flea itselft My object in this article is to describe these transformations, and td add a practical suggestion for the easy destruction of these little pests^ During the course of the past summer, having dropped a very minut* insect on the floor of my library, close to the spot where one of my spaniels is in the habit of lying near my feet, I was obliged, in order to find it, to sweep the carpet very carefully with a fine brush upon a piece of white paper. By doing this I found my specimen ; but I also discovered a number of very small, white, worm-like larvae, which I immediately recognised as those of the common flea. I was not sorry to make this discovery, being anxious to examine the structure of this larva, and especially that of the parts of its mouth (hitherto undescribed), in consequence of the interesting position which the perfect insect occupies in the classification of hexapod in-sects, forming, as it does, a separate, order, to which the name of Aphaniptera has been applied, from no wings being visible upon the insect, although their representatives exist in the shape of two flat-tened scales on the sides of the body attached to the proper wing-bearing segment. The female flea deposits about a dozen white, slimy eggs of an oval form (fig. a, one of the eggs very highly magnified), and which are of a rather large size in proportion to that of the parent insect. The larvae are hatched in summer at the end of five or six days. They are at first white, but subsequently assume a sligl^t reddish tinge.
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