150 [July. 



Another Braconid new to England is Acampsis nltcrnipes, Wesm., 

 lately found by Mr. Bignell in some numbers in the Bickleigh Woods 

 near Plymouth. It is singular that this conspicuous insect should so 

 long have escaped our researches. Its systematic place is next after 

 SpJicsropyx {Jthytidofj aster in the catalogue). 



Another parasite unknown as British hitherto, is the Tryphonid 

 Polyhlastus anniilicornis, Giraud (Ann. Soc. Fr., 1S71, p. 4()G). Only 

 one w'as captured by Giraud near Vienna, and regarded by him as a 

 great rarity. I find it here occasionally in hedges; it varies much in 

 size ; no ^ has yet occurred. 



In the neglected Orders of insects it is easy to increase the 

 British list, but I forbear to mention other species, as their number 

 would prove excessive. However, I cannot omit the fact that the 

 scarce Dipteron, Merodon equestris, is now flying in some numbers in 

 my garden, but it is so wary as to be almost unapproachable ; two 

 captures in a day is the utmost success to be expected. In the same 

 garden Criorrliina herherina is an occasional visitant. 



Botusfleming, Cornwall : 



June 5th, 1897. 



DEFOLIATION OF COEK TREES IN TUNIS BY OCNEIIIA DISPAIL 

 BY THE RET. A. E. EATON, M.A., F.E.S. 



Any one visiting Ain Drahan in the Khroumirie (Tunisie), from 

 La Calle or Tabarka, last July, could see, while passing along the 

 slopes of Djebel Bonoucla and Kef el Keba'i, that something had 

 happened to the forest thereabouts. The cork trees from about 1900 

 to 2200 feet above the sea, for a couple of miles or more, looked very 

 much like alders in flower beginning to show leaf. They had been 

 stripped of their leaves by a larva, and their summer shoots caused 

 the reddish-brown residua to be sparsely picked out with green ; but 

 the whole season's growth of cork must have been abortive. It was 

 only Quercus suher, L., that was ravaged ; Q. Mirbeckii, Dur., was 

 untouched. The moth was out in profusion on July 21st — males 

 fluttering about the trees in the sunshine, as numerous as leaves 

 falling in an October breeze ; females, a dispersed host, coupling and 

 laying eggs amidst remnants of deserted webs and empty pupa shells 

 that dangled loosely from the trunks and branches. 



Here and there females stood close together in a row on the part 

 of a tree from which cork had been harvested (about ten moths to a 



