ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. XXV 



Hymenopterous parasites, belonging to the genera Pteromahis and 

 Megaspilus, found hovering over wheat infested bj' the larvae of 

 the Wheat Midge ; also a singular species of Snlurnia from Cen- 

 tral America, remarkable for the very large size of the talc-like 

 spots of its wings, from the Collection of the Rev. F. W. Hope. 



A Note upon Flights of /iphides, addressed to W. Spence, Esq. 

 by G. H. K. Thwaites, Esq. dated Bristol, August 14, 1847, was 

 read as follows : 



" The Aphides did not visit our garden, but were rather nu- 

 merous in some gardens very near to us, where they appeared to 

 do little harm, and soon died, as I am informed. From the 

 migrations being synchronous, or nearly so, in every part of the 

 country, there seems reason to believe that it is an instinctive 

 movement on the part of the insect, quite independent of atmo- 

 spheric conditions, or failure of the supply of food, and that it 

 probably takes place every year, but the swams are not suffi- 

 ciently large to attract observation. The Rev. W. Clifford, the 

 clergyman of our parish, told me several months ago that he was 

 standing with Mrs. Clifford at the garden door, and noticed a 

 peculiar kind of cloud approaching, which struck him as so re- 

 markable, that he said to her, ' I think we had better go in and 

 shut the doors and windows, for I think that cloud is a blight in 

 the air.' He did so, and after the cloud had passed over, he 

 found the plants in the garden covered with amazing numbers of 

 ' blight' {Aphides), which, I think, he told me were green."* 



Mr. Douglas exhibited a specimen of Graphiphora depuncta, 

 captured by Mr. Hodgkinson of Carlisle, and stated that Polia 

 lichema, a species new to this country, had been captured in the 

 New Forest by Mrs. Vines. 



* In a subsequent communication, dated September 20, 1847, Mr. Thwaites 

 inclosed a note from the Rev. Mr. Wayne, rector of Much VVenlock, Shropshire, 

 to whom he had written on the subject, from which the following is an extract. 

 " The black Aphis arrived in this neighbourhood about six weeks since as I 

 guess, that is, about the middle of July, settling chiefly on the asparagus, French 

 bean, turnip, onion, and (if it were the same) on the common broad bean, to its 

 total destruction — at least of the flower and pod. The common groundsel also 

 was covered. They came suddenly and died suddenly, remaining attached to the 

 plants as if alive. You ask, ' Were they seen approaching and whence?' On 

 this point one of my neighbours told me, that standing by his house one or two 

 evenings just towards sun-set, he S3w tlie Aphides coming like a swarm of locusts 

 from the west, and ' knittiiig'\ on all the plants of the garden. He described the 

 western sky as full of them." 



[t Query, nitting, i. e. ovipositing.] 



