80 PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



Mr. Westwood detailed an entomological visit lately made 

 to Paris ; and, amongst other subjects, introduced to notice a 

 disease with which silkworms have been very extensively 

 attacked in France, called muscadine. The malady is a para- 

 site, which gradually envelopes the whole body in a white 

 fungus, and destroys the worm ; the mischief being produced 

 by the explosion of a fungus, which is taken in by the spiracles 

 and pores of the skin, as has been proved by M. Audouin, 

 who has inoculated several worms and beetles with it. 



There was also a specimen of Scolytus fygmwus, an insect 

 which attacks the oak, and has been latterly so destructive that 

 80,000 trees in the Bois de Vincennes have been cut down 

 through its attacks. 



Mr. Westwood made some remarks on the progress of 

 entomology in France, which he stated to be in advance of this 

 country ; there being more working cultivators, and the col- 

 lection at the Jardin des Plantes being superior to that at the 

 British Museum; M. Audouin had lately delivered a course of 

 fifty lectures on entomology. 



Mr. Westwood exhibited the living larva of the Ant-lion, 

 Myrmeleon formica-leo. This curious little creature being 

 placed in a receptacle containing sand, instantly buried itself 

 in the sand, leaving only its mandibles visible, and performed 

 the operation of throwing up the sand with its head, as de- 

 scribed in " the Grammar of Entomology" and elsewhere. 



Sitting of the 4th of September, 1837. 

 J. F. Stephens, Esq. President, in the Chair. 



On ihe question of the confirmation of the minutes of the 

 last meeting being put, Mr. Ingpen wished to make a cor- 

 rection in the record of what passed at the last meeting, when 

 a lepidopterous insect was exhibited, with an excrescence 

 double the length of the head, supposed to be of the nature of 

 a fungus, growing out of one of the eyes. On further exa- 

 mination, the supposed fungus had turned out to be the stamen 

 of an orchideous plant accidentally stuck in the eye. 



Several donations of books were announced, new Members 

 balloted in, &c. 



A paper, accompanied by a drawing, was presented, descriptive 

 of Epomidiopteron JuUi, an hymenopterous insect in the British 



