mi.] 1G7 



The second ia contained in a note sent by M. Kiinckel d'lTerculais to the 

 Entomological Society of France (Meeting of February 11th) on the ravages of the 

 satne species in Southern Algeria, in wliich it is stated that the natives are only too 

 ready to aid in the destruction of locusts, because they use them as food, the occu- 

 pants of each house or tent laying in a stock. They are first cured in salt and water, 

 and then dried in the sun ; they also form an article of barter, il. Kiinckel remarks 

 that Strabo recorded a similar iiabit as existing in his time, in the same district, but 

 then the locusts were crushed, salted, and formed into a kind of cake, which formed 

 the chief food of the population. 



Recent writers on locusts as food seem mostly to have forgotten tlie numerous 

 citations by the Rev. F. W. Hope in a paper published in vol. iii of the First Series 

 of Trans. Ent. Soc. London (1842), which probably mainly concern A. peregrimnn 

 and its American form or representative. 



This reminds ns that latterly we have heard nothing of the elaborate prepara- 

 tions once made by our friend Prof Riley for utilizing the Rocky Mountain Locust 

 (Caloptenus spretus) as food. We incline to the opinion tluit the "taste," even 

 when they were cooked in the most tickling style of Parisian gastronomic art, proved 

 an acquired one, and was easily, and not reluctantly, lost. — Eds. 



A new species of TortricidcB causing motion in seeds. — In the " Anales de la 

 Sociedad Cientifica Argentina," Tome xxxi, pp. 97 — 110, February, 1891, Dr. Carlos 

 Berg gives a lengthy review of the natural history and bibliography of Carpocapsa 

 saltitans, Westw., of which the larva inhabits the seeds of CoUigitaya odorifera, 

 Mol., known as "jumping seeds ;" and he adds the description of a npw species of 

 TortricidcB, the larva of which lives in and on the seeds of another Euphorbiaceous 

 plant, Colliguai/a brasiliensis, J. Miill., a native of Uruguay, causing tiiem to move 

 in a manner similar to those tenanted by Carpocapxa saltitans, which he describes 

 as Orapholitha matrix. There is a long account of the natural history and diagnosis 

 of the moth. — Eds. 



LarvcB of Abraxas grossuJariata on Japanese Spindle-tree. — I was somewhat 

 surprised yesterday to find a colony of the larvse of Abraxas grossulariata on the 

 terminal shoots of Euoni/mus japonicus,vrhere they were busily engaged in devouring 

 the young leaves. By the much-commended device of hand-picking I stopped the 

 further development of about six dozen of them, but they have already left the 

 young shoots as bare as the continued action of our long winter has effected on the 

 unripened wood of last year, which, however, is withered past redemption. Kalten- 

 baeh states that he found the larvse of this species on E. europeeus, but I do not 

 remember that they have been noticed on the Japanese plant. At Beaufort Gardens 

 they devastated the currant bushes, as was natural and proper — for them ; why they 

 have spitefully followed me here, where there are no currants, and satiate themselves 

 on foreign food, I know not. — -J. W. Douglas, 153, Lewisham Road, S.E. : 

 Mai/ I6th, 1891. 



Late appearance of early-spring Lepidopfera. — On the 5th instant, owing, I 

 8upp( se, to the retarded season, I met with Anisopteryx cBscularia and Amphydasis 

 prodromaria in excellent condition, at light. Some more seasonable visitors to the 

 gas lamps on the same night were SeJenia illustraria, Coremia ferrugata, Melanippe 



