( V ) 



Mr. Blandford exhibited some small lumps of common 

 salt burrowed by larvfe of Dermestes vulpinua, to which he 

 had incidentally I'eferred in a letter appearing in " Nature." 

 They were sent to Sir H. T. Wood, Secretary of the Society 

 of Arts, by a correspondent in Australia, who wrote con- 

 cerning them as follows : — 



" — Meat Works, 

 " The Secretary, Queensland. 



Society of Arts. 



" My Dear Sir, — I am sending you by same mail, per packet 

 post, in a small tin, a specimen of some entomological dweller 

 in regions of salt. I hope the insects, which are now alive 

 and in various stages of development, will arrive safe and 

 well into your hands. During the whole course of my 

 experience as a preserver of meats and other provisions I 

 never yet have discovered or known that salt has a weevil or 

 grub which obtains its sole sustenance therein whilst locked 

 in a tin for weeks and weeks, as has been the case with the 

 specimens I am sending your Society. The grub develops a 

 fly or beetle, and you should be careful upon opening the lid 

 that the fly does not fly away immediately, as occurred with 

 me here. I would be glad to know how the specimens 

 reached you and what is the history of the creatures 

 therein," &c., &c., «fcc. 



1 : Mr. Blandford said it was a mistake to suppose that the 

 larvae burrowed in the salt for the sake of obtaining food, 

 although a very natural mistake for an unentomological 

 observer to make. He himself had on several occasions called 

 attention to depredations of Dermestes vulpinus, arising from 

 a habit possessed by the larvse of burrowing into different 

 materials in order to find a shelter in which to undergo pupa- 

 tion ; but this was the first time that salt, as a substance 

 attacked in that way, had come under his notice. 



Mr. J. J. Walker, in remarking upon the exhibit, said he 

 believed one of the earliest references to injuries caused by 

 Dermestes was to be found in " The Last Voyage of Thomas 

 Candish," published in Hakluyt's Collection of Voyages, 

 where there was an interesting but somewhat exaggerated 

 account of certain worms which, bred from a stock of dried 



