214 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
CRYPTORRHYNCHUS LAPATHI, Linn.—About two months ago 
the owner of a withy-bed drew my attention to many of his two- 
year-old withies, which were lying prostrate after a heavy gale. 
On examining the place where the withy was broken, I discovered 
that the wood had been eaten away into the centre of the stem, . 
and on splitting the stick the culprit was discovered in the shape 
of a fine fat white maggot, which was feeding on the pith. By the 
time this larva was full-fed it had consumed about one inch and 
a half of the pith. I brought home about thirty pieces, and last 
week I opened them, and each contained a fully-developed beetle. 
Can any of your readers say when the beetles would have emerged, 
or when and where the eggs are laid? It appears to me from the 
size, &c., of the entrance, that it must have left some other tree; 
yet there did not appear to be any old tree near affected by them. 
I should not have disturbed them, but was very anxious to see if 
one was likely to produce an ichneumon, but I am sorry to say 
they all turned out beetles. In Cox’s ‘ Handbook of Coleoptera,’ 
vol. i1., p. 142, the scales mentioned therein as white, in my 
specimens are a beautiful pink. This may be owing to my 
prematurely removing them from their hiding-place; or are they 
pink when they first emerge, and soon get bleached to the colour 
mentioned ?—G. C. Bianriti; Stonehouse, Plymouth, Aug. 9th. 
OBSERVATION ON THE TERMITES OF Rancoon.—As a record 
of an incident in the habits of the white ant coming under 
my own observation, I venture to lay this short note before 
the readers of the ‘Entomologist.’ The specimens and a note 
were laid before the Linnean Society on June 7th, 1883. 
About the middle of November, 1882, I noticed a cloud of 
termites flying about the stair of my bungalow. I found they 
were issuing from the ground near a termitarium under the stair. 
I was able to watch the process of their exit from the nest. The 
ground at some distance from the hill would suddenly open, and 
a crowd of workers appear, who seemed to be enlarging the 
opening. Immediately after came the long-legged males in an 
incessant stream, taking to flight as fast as they could spread 
their wings, many falling again to the ground, when they became 
the prey of the ants. This had not gone on for more than three 
or four minutes when a couple of toads appeared, and stationing 
themselves by the openings whence the termites issued swallowed 
them as fast as they appeared, while those that escaped into the 
