720 NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



The Donations and Exchanges received since the previous 

 Monthly Meeting (24th September, 1919) amounting to 5 Vols., 

 58 Parts or Nos., 2 Bulletins, 2 Reports and 1 Pamphlet, re- 

 ceived from 36 Societies and Institutions and one private donor, 

 were laid upon the table. 



NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



Dr. Pi. J. Tillyard exhibited the larva, subpupa and pupa 

 of the Great Cicada-hunting Wasp, Exeirus lateritius Shuck., 

 figured in Mr. Froggatt's "Australian Insects" as Salius bicolor. 

 These huge wasps were very busy making their large sand- 

 mounds around Hornsby during the summer of 1917-8, and a 

 number were watched dragging their prey to a large burrow 

 with about twenty separate entrances. One wasp took a Cicada 

 in a straight line for 95 yards, crossing a ditch and a fallen tree- 

 trunk en route. In August, 1918, the burrow was dug up, and 

 about thirty large cocoons, each placed beside the skeletal re- 

 mains of a Cicada, and containing a full-fed larva inside, were 

 secured. There were no connections between the separate tun- 

 nels. The cocoons were kept through the very dry spring and 

 summer of 1918-19, but no wasps emerged. After the rains 

 of the present Spring, the cocoons were damped considerably, 

 and a fortnight later they were opened up, with the result that 

 several of the larvae were found to have changed to the subpupal 

 and pupal stages. This points to the necessity of spring rain- 

 fall for the emergence of these wasps, and the same condition 

 holds for the Cicada. Both these insects should, therefore, be 

 fairly abundant during the coming summer. 



Mr. A. A. Hamilton exhibited a series of specimens from 

 the National Herbarium, Sydney, showing irregular phyllotaxy, 

 petaloid heterotaxy, and frondescent prolification. (a) Rosa 

 Sort. var. (P. Hallmann, 3, 1917), (b) Rosa "Mainan Cochet" 

 (J. L. Boorman, 4, 1919), (c) Rosa "Devoniensis" (W. Napier, 

 4, 1916). In example (a) four leaves have been produced in 

 juxtaposition in the metamorphic region, forming an irregular 

 whorl (the normal phyllotaxy of the genus is alternate). The 

 whorl of leaves is intruded by a petal, and two opposing ad- 

 ventitious petals have replaced the foliage leaves at the nodes 

 immediately above. Worsdell (Principles of Plant Teratology, 

 p. 227) regards the spiral leaf arrangement as the primitive 



