SOCIETIES. 87 



the smaller ones. I know that in June and July, I could have taken 

 thousands of specimens in a day on the sandhills here if I had had 

 time to set them. Before I tried "smoking" I could only get, say, five 

 or six Gelechia temerella in a morning ; with the " smoke " I could get 

 fifty in an hour, and the same with other Gelechice. I use old rags or 

 brown paper, or, in fact, any paper made into touch-paper with saltpetre 

 melted in water and dried again. A whiff or two of this, sent among 

 the roots of the grass, etc., will make most things move. — T. Baxter. 

 November 13//?, 1891. 



Societies. 



Entomological Society of London. — March 9, 1892. — Professor 

 C. Stewart, President of the Linnean Society, exhibited and made re- 

 marks on specimens of Cystoccelia iinmaculata, an Orthopterous insect 

 from Namaqualand, in which the female is far more conspicuously 

 coloured than the male, and the stridulating apparatus of the male 

 differs in certain important details from that of other species. A long 

 and interesting discussion ensued, in which Dr. Sharp, Mr. Poulton, 

 Mr. Distant, Mr. H. J. Elwes, Colonel Swinhoe, and Mr. Hampson 

 took part. Mr. Elwes exhibited specimens of Ribes aureum, which 

 were covered with galls, as to the nature of which the Scientific Com- 

 mittee of the Horticultural Society desired to have the opinion of the 

 Entomological Society. Mr. Fenn, Mr. Tutt, and Mr. Barrett made 

 some remarks on these galls. Mr. Elwes also exhibited a large number 

 of species of Heterocera, recently collected by Mr. Doherty in South- 

 east Borneo and Sambawa. Colonel Swinhoe, Mr. Hampson, and Mr. 

 Distant took part in the discussion which ensued. Mr. Barrett exhibited 

 a series of specimens of Noctua /estiva, bred by Mr. G. V. Hart, of 

 Dublin, which represented most of the known forins of the species, 

 including the Shetland type, and the form formerly described as a dis- 

 inct species, under the name of Noctua confiua. Mr. Fenn and Mr. 

 Tutt made some remarks on the specimens. Mr. W. C. Boyd exhibited 

 a specimen of Diantlwecia barrettii, taken at Ilfracombe last summer. 

 It was remarked that Mr. W. F. H. Blandford had recorded the capture 

 of D. barrettii — which had, until recently, been supposed to be con- 

 fined to Ireland — from Pembrokeshire, and that its capture had also 

 since been recorded from Cornwall. Mr. Tutt exhibited specimens of 

 Polia xanthoinista, from Mr. Gregson's collection, which had recently 

 been sent to him by Mr. Sydney Webb. They included, amongst 

 others, a specimen much suffused with yellow, and resembling Hiibner's 

 type and Gregson's type ot var. stitkes, which Mr. Tutt stated was 

 practically identical with Treitschke's nis,rocincta. He remarked that 

 certain localities appeared to produce different forms of this species, 

 responding largely to their environment as far as colour is concerned, 

 and were thus protected by resemblance to their surroundings. Mr. 

 G. A. James Rothney exhibited and read notes on a large collection of 

 Indian Ants which he had made in Bengal between 1872 and 18S6, 

 comprising some 90 species. He stated that 18 of these species had 

 been described by Dr. Mayr in his paper entitled " Ameisen Fauna 

 Asiens," 1878: he also said that Dr. Forel had recently identified 

 several other new species in the collection, and that there were about 



