XXVll 



that by taking a dose of " milk of sulphur" he was effectually relieved from 

 all annoyance. 



Professor Westwood communicated a note with reference to some shoots 

 of horse-chestnut which he had exhibited at the July meeting of the Society, 

 as having been destroyed, apparently by some Lepidopterous larvoe or wood- 

 boring beetles; but he had since received from Mr, Stainton some shoots 

 that had been forwarded to him by Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, which had been 

 destroyed by squirrels in precisely the same manner. Sir Thomas had 

 himself seen the squirrels at work splitting the shoots with their teeth and 

 e.\tracting the pith. 



Mr. Smith remarked that he had found the common buff-tip moth 

 {PygcBva hucephala) very destructive of late to the Spanish chestnut, a tree 

 on which the insect is not usually found. 



Professor Westwood also stated that he had received from a correspondent 

 in Oxfordshire specimens of the two small species of grasshopper with long 

 antennae, Meconema varium, Fab., and Xiphidion clypeatum, Panzer, which 

 he had taken on a pear tree in his garden, where they had been regularly 

 observed for the last five or six years. 



Mr. M'Lachlan stated that the former insect vras frequently observed by 

 Lepidopterists when sugaring for moths. 



Mr. Smith communicated the descriptions of three additional species of 

 Formicidse from New Zealand, which liad been sent to him by Mr. David 

 Sharp since his description of Mr. Wakefield's collection was in the press. 

 Two of the species belonged to genera not previously ascertained to inhabit 

 New Zealand, namely Amblyopone and Ponera. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited a series of sixty specimens of a sawfly [Crcesus 

 septentrionalis), which he had bred from larvse found feeding on young 

 shoots of the alder, growing on the banks of the Sid, near Sidmouth, South 

 Devon. The specimens of the fly were all bred in a single flower-pot, nine 

 inches in diameter. 



Mr. Smith also mentioned the fact of Mutilla Europfca having been found 

 parasitic on Bombus muscorum, by Miss M. Pasley, in an orchard at Shed- 

 field Grange, near Wickham, Hants ; he also remarked on a coincidence 

 somewhat remarkable, that on the day previous to his receiving Miss Pasley 's 

 communication, Prof. Edward Brandt, of St. Petersburg, had informed him 

 that he had found Mutilla Europtea in a nest of Bombus muscorum ; this 

 being the first instance that had come to his knowledge of the parasite 

 infesting the nests of that species of humble-bee. 



Dr. Sharp communicated the following list of localities of some species 

 of Amazonian Staphylinidee discovered by Dr. Trail, and described by 

 Dr. Sharp in the 'Transactions of the Entomological Society of London,' 

 1876, pp. 27—421:— 



Placusa confinis. Lages, near Manaos. 



