66 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



years ago. In fact, he considers it totally wrong. In this conclu 

 sion Mr. Pergande, the best informed student of ants in America, 

 agrees with Mr. Ashmead. Mr. Schwarz, in substantiation of 

 this view, said that Labidus has never been found east of the arid 

 region of the United States, whereas Eciton occurs in North 

 Carolina. The Rev. P. Jerome Schmitt has found the female of 

 Eciton in North Carolina, and possesses an excellent drawing of 

 it, but although he has had it for more than two years, he has not 

 yet published it. Referring to Mr. Cockerell's statements regard 

 ing the different bees visiting the same species of flower in 

 different localities, Mr. Schwarz did not consider it at all signifi 

 cant, since no bees seem to be confined to single kinds of plants. 

 He further mentioned Mr. Cockerell's custom of naming bees 

 after plants which he had found them to visit, and thought that 

 this custom was unwise. Mr. Benton agreed with the last speaker 

 and stated that bees visit flowers for honey, and that in different 

 atmospheric conditions the honey supply of different plants varies 

 greatly, so that honey-collecting bees are forced, on occasion, to 

 visit different species of plants. 



Mr. Schwarz presented the following : 



NOTES ON THE LERP INSECTS (PSYLLIDiE) 

 OF AUSTRALIA. 



By E. A. SCHWARZ. 



For more than 60 years it has been known that there occurs 

 on the leaves of Eucalyptus trees of Australia and Tasmania a 

 substance called Laap or Lerp by the natives and which is used 

 by the latter as an article of food. The first scientific investiga 

 tion of one of these objects was published in 1849, in theEdinburg 

 New Philosophical Journal,* by Dr. Anderson, who made a 

 chemical analysis of Lerp but remained ignorant regarding 

 its origin. In the same year Mr. Newport surmised that Lerp was 

 the product of an insect and not a mere exudation of the plant. 



In 1850 Mr. Thomas Dobson published an illustrated paper 

 on this subject in the first volume of the Papers and Proceedings 

 of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land.* A reprint, with 

 additional figures and an appendix apparently written by "J. M.," 

 appeared in the Transactions of the Microscopical Society (2), 

 vol. 5, 1857, p. 123-130, under the title u On Laap, or Lerp, 



* I have not seen this paper, nor is it mentioned in Hagen's Bibliotheca. 



