Eaitmoloffical Society. 479 



entirely destitute of any such action . Among these may be mentioned 

 the Solanum nigrum, Dulcamara, tuberosum, oleraceum, auHculatum, 

 ceihiopicufn, and esculentum used as food, Solanum crisjmm consi- 

 dered a tonic by the natives of S. America, and in truth the vast 

 genus Solanum, composing nearly ^th of the order, is not to be desig- 

 nated a poisonous genus. To mention another anomaly in the old 

 order : — The various species of Capsicum are stimulant, and in con- 

 siderable doses have caused death from inflammation of the alimentary 

 canal, but they never produce the slightest approach to narcotism. 



" When Mr. Miers's characters are applied to the old order, all its 

 known narcotic plants are allotted to the Atropacece, and the author 

 thought he might safely say that in the Solanacece there is not one 

 plant deserving the appellation of a narcotic. The only statement he 

 found of any plants of Miers's Solanacece producing dilatation of the 

 pupil, is by M. Dunal in an essay published many years ago, in which 

 he said that he thought he had seen Solanum nigrum, villosum, nodi- 

 florum, and miniatum, on their expressed juice being appUed to the 

 eye, produce a very slight dilatation and insen^bility of the organ to 

 a bright light, and this condition, he further remarks, continues only 

 from four to five hours, but up to this time Mr. Anderson had found 

 no authentication of these remarks. 



" When we examine the alkaloids of the two families, we find the 

 same difference in their action. Solanine derived from many sources, 

 although poisonous, does not, on the authority of Soubeiran, dilate 

 the pupil, whereas all the alkaloids of the Atropacece, such as atro- 

 pine, hyoscyamine and daturine, and perhaps nicotine, exert a won- 

 derful power on the iris even in very minute quantity." 



5. ^' Register of the flowering of certain hardy plants in the Royal 

 Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, compared with the flowering of the same 

 species, and in most cases the identical plants reported on during the 

 three previous years," by James M'Nab, Curator. 



6. "On the effects of the past vrinter on the Coniferae and other 

 plants in the open ground in Golden Acres Nursery," by Mr. P. S. 

 Robertson. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



April 4, 1853.— Edward Newman, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



J. J. Stevens, Esq., of Bogota, presented specimens of a Coleo- 

 pterous larva, infested by a species of Sphceria, with a note upon its 

 habits. "The grub is never found in trees, but underground, in 

 timber previously rotten, and on lands from which fern has been 

 extirpated, but roots still left behind in a state of decomposition. In 

 the living state they are very well known, but in the hardened state 

 with the fungus grovsdng from the mouth, they are very rare, and 

 always dead. The first specimen brought to me had a green bud 

 protruding from the mouth, and resembled a green pea when it first 

 bursts the soil." 



Mr. Douglas exhibited living larvse of a Solenobia or Talceporia 

 produced from eggs laid by a female, without connection with the 

 other sex. 



The Rev. Joseph Greene, in a paper on the means of collecting 



