commonly found about coffee-estates. This does what the rat apparently does not eat the berries, which being indigestible, with the exception of the outside pulp, are afterwards dropped and found upon logs and on the ground, in the shape of parchment coffee. Jackals and monkeys occasionally do the same, and a deer will now and then come from the forest and nibble the tops of the young trees; but these are not serious injuries. By far more so are those arising from buffalo trespass.

This concludes my observations on the enemies of the coffeetree. However, I must add a few words on the insects commonly found on coffee-estates, without being injurious, and the cause of their presence there.

Most conspicuous amongst these are the black stag-beetle (two spec. Lucanus), the bright green carpenter-beetle (five spec. Campsosternus), and the white and black carpenter-beetle (two spec. Alaus). These insects live, during the imperfect stages of their existence, in the rotting logs which lie about amongst the coffee. The large white, fleshy grubs, with brown heads, are the larvae of the stag-beetle; the long, cylindrical, sluggish brown worm, is that of the Campsosternus; and the larva of the Alaus is black, rather depressed, active, and pugnacious. On attaining the perfect state these insects come forth, and, of course, are seen upon the coffee, where the stag-beetle will now and then attack a cluster of berries. The Campsosterni feed upon honey-dew and Acari, and occasionally devour perhaps a bug. From this reason they are exclusively found upon coffee-trees, whereas the Lucani and Alaus fly about and are met with elsewhere. The smaller kinds of white grubs found in the rotting logs are the larvae of the flat, black beetles found with them (three or four spec. Passalus). These larvæ have only two pairs of well-developed legs, are harmless, and must not be confounded with the "white grub," the larvæ of cockchafers. About December, a grey weevil (Astycus spec.) is found upon the trees, and the blossoms, which come forth some months later, are frequented by various insects allied to the English rose-beetle (Clinteria, Taniodera, Popilia, Singhala), but none of these appear to do much harm.

A bugged tree presents, on a fine sunny day, generally a

very animated, and, to the entomologist, highly interesting picture-a perfect microcosm-a small world of its own.

Besides some of the insects just alluded to, and perhaps some gaudily-coloured butterfly, numerous Hymenoptera (especially Formicidæ, Sphegidæ, and Ichneumonidae), several Phryganidæ and Diptera resort to it, and a bright green Mantis pounces constantly out from behind the leaves upon the unwary flies. I believe that twenty-five different species of insects might easily be gathered off a single coffee-tree on such an occasion. None of these insects do any injury to the tree, nor to the bug either, most of them resorting to the tree for the sake of the honey-dew, and some in order to prey upon the smaller insects which are attracted by this sweet substance. Amongst the Phryganida (caddice-flies), is very common the Chimarrha auriceps, Hag., which is red, with black wings, feelers, and eyes. I mention this insect particularly, because Westwood (Introduction to Entomology, vol. ii. p. 69) says, that the caddice-flies in their perfect state take no nourishment. This, however, is not so in the species which frequent the coffee-tree.

The Mantis of the coffee-tree (M. tricolor, N.) is green, lower wings reddish, with large blackish spot at posterior margin. The female is 1" long, expanse of wings 11"; the male considerably smaller. The young larvæ are black. The eggs are deposited upon coffee-leaves in cocoon-like masses of g" in length, not including a long point to which the mass is drawn out on either end, and which would make it upwards of 1" long. These nests are very delicate cake-like structures, much less coarse and substantial than those of the larger species. Amongst the flies, there is, about December, a fine large Tephritis with green eyes and variegated wings. I have not observed its larva to reside in any part of the coffee-tree.

Further Remarks on Lightning Figures, &c. By CHARLES TOMLINSON, Lecturer on Science, King's College School, London.

(Plate I.)

In a paper read before the Physical Section of the British Association at Manchester in September last, and inserted in the October number of this Journal (vol. xiv. p. 254), I have attempted to show that the tree-like impressions which are sometimes found on the bodies of men and animals that have been struck by lightning, are produced, not by any photoelectric action, as has been supposed, but by the figures which the lightning itself assumes in striking the earth. In that paper the method of producing these figures by the discharge of a Leyden jar was given, and all that was wanted to complete the theory was a similar figure due to the action of the lightning itself. Such a case was observed by Charles Pooley, Esquire of Weston-super-Mare, during a thunder-storm which passed over Oakley Park, near Cirencester in July 1857. An ash-tree was struck by lightning, and on the inner surface of the torn-off bark some ramified lightning figures were found. An account of the accident, together with a drawing of the tree, and specimens of the bark, were forwarded by Mr Pooley to Professor Faraday, who has kindly placed them at my disposal on the present occasion.

Mr Pooley says: "The storm came from the north-west, and was accompanied with heavy rain. The first force of the electric discharge was expended on a branch north-west of the tree, which it barked and shivered to pieces. The fluid then passed through the fork of the tree without injuring that immediate part, but descending the south-west side, cut a clear line about 1 inch in width out of the bark, and loosened the bark to the extent of 1 foot on each side of it. The seam gradually widened as it reached the knotty roots. The point of interest, however, is in the circumstance, that on the inner surface of the fragment of the bark, which I picked up within half an hour after the accident, is to be found the actual impress of the passage of the electric flash.

"On it may be seen the tongue-like coruscations by which

the force of the electric fluid expended itself, and which are gouged out, roughened, and slightly charred at the edges.

"Several other trees were struck by lightning on that and the succeeding days, all of which I visited in the neighbourhood, but on none of them could I find a trace resembling this, nor have I ever seen a similar instance, where the likeness of the flash is preserved. In the longer piece it is the more distinct. I have placed a bit of pink paper to denote the upper end, from which the progress of the coruscation can be easily traced."

The letter, of which the above is an extract, is dated 1st February 1858. On examining the specimens of bark at the Royal Institution in November 1861, or three years and a half after the accident, they had become somewhat warped, and the inner surface had assumed a brick-red colour in drying. The track of the lightning was not very distinct, blending as it did with the general colour of the surface; while the contraction in drying and the alteration in colour had doubtless obliterated some of the lines. I can therefore only represent it as it appeared to me in the following drawing; but Mr Pooley, in a letter to me, dated November 23, 1861, says, "The inside lining of the bark was not brick-red when I found it, but almost white, yellowish white; and the lightning coruscations were as vividly distinct as if they had been burnt in by a red-hot iron, the margins of each stroke being somewhat less charred than the central line of each stroke. The brickish red colour it has assumed by drying and exposure to the air."

Such is the instructive and interesting case furnished by Mr Pooley. That it does not often occur may arise from two circumstances: First, That a scientific witness is seldom at hand to give evidence when such a case arises; and, secondly, the extreme heat and mechanical violence of the lightning stroke may obliterate these ramified marks after they have been formed. And, even when spared by the lightning, the majority of observers would probably not think them worthy of notice and record. We do, however, occasionally find some slight notice of these figures in an almost unconscious expression of the reporter. Thus, in a case given in the

twenty-third volume of the "Comptes Rendus," a house in the Island of Zante was struck by lightning, and a young man killed while in bed. In the post-mortem examination the passage of the lightning was traced along the body, from a wound under the right foot of more than an inch in length, along the leg and thigh, up the back to the neck. The track was of a dark brown or black colour, and the skin all about it presented ramified scarifications. The hair was burnt off the body, including the eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair of the head. On the middle of the right shoulder were six circular marks of a flesh colour, and well defined on the blackened skin. These circles were of different sizes, and corresponded with those of six gold pieces which the young man wore on his right side, in a belt that passed round his body, at the time of the accident. It is supposed that an ascending stroke of lightning entered the right foot, passed up the body to the coins, from them to the shoulder, carrying and fixing an impression of them (but how it is difficult to explain), and then bounded off to the window, by which the fluid disappeared. The room smelt strongly of burning sulphur and bitumen, which was accounted for by the charred flesh and clothes.

A case where similar deep wounds were produced is reported by M. Goyon in the "Comptes Rendus," vol. xliv. The brig La Felicité, en route for Algiers, was struck by lightning near the Cape de Garde, on the 16th December 1856. Six men were thrown down and fearfully wounded, and in one case the wounds were blackened as if by charcoal. The men were landed, and taken into the hospital, and the medical officer, reporting on the case of one of them on the 12th of January, says, "Les bords de la plaie étaient surmontés par des croûtes recouvrant de gros boutons charnus. Son aspect demonstrait du reste que non seulement le derme mais encore une épaisse couche de tissu cellulaire, avaient été compris dans l'escarre." This was the worst case, on account of the man resting with his leg against the mast at the time it was struck. Another man was struck in the mouth; and during the next few days, the whole of its mucous membrane, including that of the tongue, came away in shreds. The teeth also were blackened, as if by charcoal, and loosened.