310 



159. Notes on captures of Lepidoptej'a. Mr. Douglas, no doubt, 

 will inform you of our various captures off the sallow-blossom. I have 

 only to trouble you with an idea which probably did not suggest itself 

 to him. Out of the hundreds of Glaea Vaccinii we have seen, not one 

 of sub-nigra has been discovered ; this, I think, will corroborate Mr. 

 H. Doubleday's view of its being a distinct species. I captured at 

 Penge the latter end of March, a fine pair of Epigraphia avellanella ; 

 in Wood's Catalogue this is marked as an autumn insect, mine, how- 

 ever, were but just out. I always considered the female of this insect 

 to be apterous or partly so, such is not the case. I have this morn- 

 ing bred a fine female of Geometra illustraria : the larva was taken 

 small at Birch Wood the middle of August last. — Alfred Lambert ; 

 6, Trinity St., April 7, 1842. 



160. Note on Ceratognathus, 8fc, I am obliged to you for pointing 

 out (Entomol. 236) the error into which I had unintentionally fallen 

 respecting the maxillae of some of the Lucanidse : the word Ceratogna- 

 thus first used should be Xiphodontus, which agrees with Nigidius in 

 both sexes having the hooked mando : Ceratognathus agrees with Ce- 

 ruchus, &c. — J. O. Westwood ; Hammersmith, March I, 1842. 



161. Library of the late M. Audouin. Be so good as to mention 

 in the next Entomologist that the sale of the late M. Audouin's fine 

 library will take place at the Jardin des Plantes next month [May], 

 commencing on the 10th and terminating on the 25th; and that Ca- 

 talogues may be seen at the Linnean, Zoological and Entomological 

 Societies.— /cZ. April 18, 1842. 



162. The tradition of the Tigmies is owing to the Ants. In Cor- 

 rientes and Paraguay whole plains are said to be covered with their 

 buildings of dome-like and conical forms, rising five and six feet or 

 more in height, and formed of a cement hard as a rock, and impervi- 

 ous to the wet. At Santa Fe the people catch them and eat them : 

 they fi-y them into a sort of paste or omelette, or, mixed up with su- 

 gar, make sweetmeats of them. When stores are surrounded by water 

 they will throw straws and sticks into the water, and so make them- 

 selves bridges to cross by. Guevara, in his account of Paraguay, 

 speaks of a species found about Villa Rica, which deposits upon cer- 

 tain plants small globules of white wax, which the inhabitants collect 

 to make candles of. In those regions where these insects most abound, 

 an all-wise Pro\ddence has also placed a most remarkable animal, — 

 formed, as it would appear, expressly for the purpose of destroying 

 them, and preventing their overrunning the land, — the tamandua, or 

 ant-bear. — Sir Woodbine Parish on the Provinces of La Plata. 



