74 



in the country. When you go out in summer, you are immediately pounced upon by 

 a swarm of mosquitoes, black flies, cattle and deer flies, all eager to suck your blood 

 The mosquitoes are truly awful. One day, putting off in a canoe to cross a lake, I was 

 completely covered with them; and so dreadful were their stings that I was driven 

 almost mad. Their bite is extremely sore, and itches to a degree no one can imagine ; 

 the swelling was so great upon myself that I could neither close my hands nor move my 

 fingers for several days. The only way to obtain rest at night is to light heaps of 

 rotten wood and Fungi round your house. The contrast of temperature here is very 

 great, 96° in the shade in July, and 32° below zero in January. To-day the cold is 

 intense. I am writing this before a red-hot stove, to prevent the ink from freezing." 



Mr. Douglas read the following note on 



Trachys pygmcea. 



" In the ' Kevue et Magasin de Zoologie' of M. Guerin-Meneville, No. 2, 1857, 

 is a report of a memoir by M. Leprieur, read by M. Dumeril at a Meeting of the Aca- 

 demic des Sciences de Paris held on the 2nd of February, 1857, intituled ' Essai sur 

 les Metamorphoses du Trachys pygmiea, insecte de la famille des Buprestides,' from 

 which I beg to present the following extract, which will be the more interesting as it 

 relates to an insect which is a native of Britain, but hitherto exceedingly rare in our 

 collections. 



" ' M. Leprieur, after recapitulating in his memoir several observations already made, 

 by authors whom he quotes, upon the larvge of some coleopterous insects which live in 

 the interior of stems of plants, under the bark or in the woody tissue, mentions those in 

 particular which are developed in plants of the order Malvaceae. The author relates 

 that having remarked upon tufts of the mallow several leaves bearing vesicular spots, 

 coarsely rounded in their circumference, of a yellow tint, contrasting with the green 

 colour of the leaves, he sought to know the cause of them ; and he supposed that they 

 had been the abode of some insect. The following year he was fortunate enough to 

 prove the presence in these little cavities of a Buprestis, which, in the space of two or 

 three weeks, went through all the phases of its development. This was to him an ex- 

 traordinary and unknown fact, and he studied it in all its details. They are very sin- 

 gular, but are loo circumstantial to be reproduced here. 



" ' The author of the memoir describes and figures the larva of this Trachys, which 

 has a very peculiar form, as well as the pupa, which is transformed without being 

 enveloped in a cocoon. He compared this larva with those of other Buprestidaj 

 already known, in order to indicate by figures the peculiarities which distinguish them. 

 He examined the interior of the vesicle of the epidermis, where he found the remains 

 of the former skin, those of the digested matter which had served for the growth of 

 the larva, and proof that, among other parasitic larvae, that of a Cynlps for example [?], 

 had made their food of it, and took its place. 



'" We think that the memoir of M. Leprieur confirms and developes much better 

 the first observation of Reaumur upon the larvae of the Trachydes, all of which have 

 very probably the same manner of living ; that his researches establish a positive fact 

 upon a point too little known in the history of these insects, that the exactness of his 

 researches merits the approbation of the Academy, which has received them with 

 interest, and that the publication of them is very desirable.' " 



