290 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



placed in his hands by Mr. Bond, which appeared to have 

 worked its long ovipositor, bradawl-fashion, through a piece 

 of fir-wood, in quest of the larva of Sirex juvencus, on which 

 it is parasitic ; part of the ovipositor had been left in the 

 wood. Mr. Bond had some years ago found at Bournemouth 

 two Ichneumons with their ovipositors so firmly fixed into 

 wood that he was unable to remove them. Mr. Smith had 

 always hitherto supposed that the Rhyssa inserted its ovi- 

 positor into the holes made by the Sirex, instead of making 

 a hole for itself in the tree : if the latter were the rule, how 

 did the Ichneumon detect the presence of the larva within 

 the wood, and know where to insert its ovipositor ? Mr. 

 Edward Doubleday, however, had told him that he had seen 

 twenty or thirty specimens of the female of aPelecinus which 

 had perished with their elongated abdomens inserted into 

 the stem of a tree, whence they had been powerless to ex- 

 tract them ; the male had a clavate abdomen, but that sex 

 had never been met with by Mr. Doubleday. 



Mr. Bates inquired whether an ovipositor was not, homo- 

 logically, a modification of one of the abdominal segments. 



Mr. Smith thought it was rather a modification of the 

 aculeus. 



Mr. Wallace suggested the converse, namely, that the sting 

 was a modified ovipositor, and that its use as a weapon of 

 defence was a secondary and acquired use. 



Mr. G. S. Saunders exhibited a number of Poduridae found 

 near Stokesley, in pools or puddles consequent upon the 

 melting of the snow, which had recently lain on the ground 

 in the North of Yorkshire for two or three weeks. 



The President believed them to be Podura (Anura) tuber- 

 culata of Templeton, though their shrivelled state rendered 

 them difficult to identify with certainty. 



Mr. Wallace mentioned that he had received a letter from 

 Mr. Jackson Gilbanks, of Whilefield Castle, Wigton, on the 

 subject of the distastefulness to birds of brightly coloured 

 larvEe : the writer had frequently observed the dislike, or 

 rather the " abhorrence and dread," of pheasants, partridges, 

 young wild ducks and tomtits for the " gooseberry catei-- 

 pillar;" it did not, however, clearly appear whether the 

 writer referred to the larva of Abraxas or the grub of Ne- 

 matus. 



