146 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Mr. Schwarz exhibited a larval skin of the Dermestid beetle 

 Cryptorhopalum triste which, with the enclosed living pupa of 

 the beetle, had been found early last spring, among insect remains, 

 within a hollowed twig of a tree near Alexandria, Va. He stated 

 that the larvae of Cryptorhopalum have, no doubt, the same habits 

 as those of Anthrenus, except that they do not enter our houses, 

 and that they had not been found before simply because they were 

 mistaken for Anthrenus larvae. The larvae of these two genera 

 are very closely allied, and, judging from the only larval skin 

 available for comparison, he had found that the larva of Crypto 

 rhopalum superficially differs only in that the hairs of the body, 

 and more especially those forming the anal brush, are much 

 shorter and less numerous than in Anthrenus. 



Mr. Schwarz exhibited pieces of the bark from a sapling 

 of a Paper Mulberry {Broussonetia papyrifcra), which showed 

 at various places an abnormal growth, consisting of ridges, blis 

 ters, and tubercles which produced the resemblance to an incip 

 ient Black-knot. The excrescences occurred always above or 

 around such places where a female of the Scolytid Phlceotribns 

 frontalis was constructing her gallery beneath the bark, and 

 resulted, evidently, from the irritation caused by the working of 

 the beetle. The galleries of Phlccotribus were by no means com 

 pleted, and had evidently been commenced only a few days ago, 

 so that the excrescences of the bark had been formed within a 

 remarkably short time. Mr. Schwarz said that no other tree was 

 known to him that reacted in a similar way against the attacks of 

 Scolytids. He also alluded to a paper recently read by Mr. 

 Waite before the Biological Society, in which the author had 

 pointed out that the paper mulberry was more frequently infested 

 by knots, hexenbesen, and other kinds of abnormal growth than 

 any other tree. 



He also remarked upon an improvement in the mounting of 

 some small beetles, as invented by Mr. Hubbard, illustrating his 

 remarks by the exhibition of various specimens ; as usually 

 mounted on cardboard triangles, a portion of the sternum is hid 

 den from view, but in the present examples the tip of the triangle 

 had been bent obliquely downward, and the beetle is attached to 

 it only by its episternum, thus leaving the sternum free for ex 

 amination and study. 



