316 PROCEEDINGS OF 8OCIETIE8. 



municated a method of driving away the minute Ant which had recently become 

 so troublesome in houses in the neighbourhood of London. — Mr. Bainbridgk 

 exhibited a singular monstrous individual of Clivina fossor, one of the small 

 ground Beetles. — Notes were read from Dr. Buckland and the Rev. M. E, 

 Berkeley, on the vegetable nature of various excrescences occasionally observed 

 upon insects, the disease to which the House Fly is subject in the autumn, being, 

 according to Mr. Berkeley, caused by the presence of a minute Fungus, and not 

 being a plethoric kind of disease, as supposed by some writers. The Secretary 

 communicated various observations recently made upon this subject, and upon 

 the analogous parasitism of insects on the bodies of insects : stating the occurrence 

 of one of the Strepsiptera in Ammophila sabulosa, one of the Sand "Wasps. — A 

 large larva of one of the Lamellicorn Beetles, was also exhibited, from the col- 

 lection of the Rev. F. W. Hope, from which a Fungus nearly two inches long had 

 been produced. — The memoirs read were, 1. On the destruction of the black 

 caterpillar of the Turnips by poultry, by Mr. Sells ; 2. Monograph on the genus 

 Holoptilus, by J. 0. Westwood, Sec. E. S. ; 3. Conclusion of a memoir on the 

 different species of insects employed in various parts of the world as food, by the 

 Rev. F. W. Hope. 



SHEFFIELD LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



On Friday night, April 6, the regular monthly meeting of the Philosophical 

 Society was held in the rooms at the Music Hall, Charles F. Favell, M.D., 

 President, in the chair. — Several books were presented, from Mrs. Stovin, 

 including Stillingfleet's Facts on Natural History, Ray's Discourses and Let- 

 ters, Martyn's Plantce Cantabrigienses, Linn^eus's Flora Lapponica, and 

 Henslow's Botany. There was likewise laid on the table, by Mr. Moss, a large 

 specimen of the ** Alleghany Coal," which, though by no means equal in appear- 

 ance to much of the bituminous Coal of this country, belongs, nevertheless, to the 

 same geological era, and will doubtless become, in course of time, of vast 

 importance to that quarter of the United States in which the formation occurs. — 

 The oft-repeated subject of the erection of a Philosophical Hall was again mooted, 

 and a set of beautiful architectural drawings, relative to what such a structure 

 should be, was exhibited. The gentleman who moved that this subject should 

 be referred to the Committee, remarked, that while he had long been convinced 

 that the Society would never be in a position to build out of its own funds, nor 

 able to beg the money requisite for such a purpose, he had latterly entertained 

 the opinion that a hall might be advantageously raised in shares, even if it might 

 not be to the interest of some individuals, of competent means, to erect, on private 

 speculation, such a building with the requisite accommodations, in the certainty of 

 finding a satisfactory tenant. — Dr. Holland read an elaborate and interesting 



