Californian Academy of Sciences has rcceiitlj drawn up a report for presentation to 

 the Congress of the United States protesting against such reduction of forest 

 preserves, " it being a trespass of an inheritance which should, bj every legitimate 

 means, be preserved by this generation for those who are to come after. It has been 

 conclusively proven that the tei-rible droughts, floods and famines in Southern 

 Russia are directly caused by the destruction of timber. It is also a well established 

 fact that the droughts and failures of crops in a large area of France are due to 

 change in climate caused by the destruction of forests since the Revolution." In 

 Britain this does not interest us so immediately, as we have a sufficient and moderate 

 rainfall without forests, but in our Colonies it is not so. He had information that 

 much unnecessary destruction occurred, and that in New Zealand much loss had 

 recently been caused by drought. The preservation and management of forests 

 ought to be considered one of the most important duties of colonial governments. 

 From a naturalist's point of view it was sad to think that this destruction of forests 

 involved the extermination of many of the animals of the world, without our 

 having acquired any knowledge about them, and in many cases without our 

 having even seen them. It appeared from another report made by the Californian 

 Academy of Sciences that the only remaining herd of N. American Buffaloes in the 

 Yellowstone Park had been wantonly destroyed by hunters and sportsmen, as had 

 also the only colony of Beavers in the same district. 



The South London Entomological and Natural History Society: 

 Ma^ Uth, 1896.— R. South, Esq., F.E.S., President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Enock exhibited specimens of two very rare aquatic Hymenoptera, 

 Prestwichia aqimtica, which uses its legs in swimming and which has not been 

 recorded since its first capture in 1865, and Caraphractus cinctus = Polynema 

 nutans, which uses its wings in swimming. Mr. R. Adkin, a bred series of 

 Melanippe hastata, from Sutherland, with series of the same from Sussex and 

 Co. Cork. The larvae of the first were fed on Myrica gale. The Cork series had a 

 pale ochreous tone, instead of the usual dead white ground. The southern series 

 were very uniform, whereas the northern examples varied considerably in the black 

 markings. Mr. Barrett, a series of Abraxas ulmata and Pieris rapce, v. cruciferarum, 

 from Japan. The former were of the British type, but the latter equalled 

 P. brassicce is size, had a considerable suffusion of black from the base and in some 

 of the females a partial fusion of the spots. In the discussion which ensued it was 

 suggested that it might be the result of abundance of succulent food. Mr. 

 Carrington remarked on the hardy constitution of the species in Canada, where it 

 experienced extremes of temperature Irom — 60° to 138°. Mr. Tutt noted the oscillation 

 in abundance and rarity of P. rapm in America, where it had survived after a great 

 struggle with a closely allied indigenous species, with which it was supposed to have 

 interbred, and which was now very rare. Mr. Tutt, for Mr. Merrifield, a number 

 of specimens bred under various degress of heat and cold : Aylais urticce, Pyrameis 

 Atalanta, Euvanessa Antiopa and Oonepferyx rhamni. He described the variations 

 in detail and remarked that it was mainly the upper-sides which had been affected, 

 whereas the under-sides, whicli in the Rhopalocera were developed for protection, 

 were but slightly influenced. T. orbona and these species were not parallel cases of 



