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Society, to check, by an expression of iheir opinion, all Unit tends still fuilbcr to con- 

 fuse the nomenclature and synonymy. 

 " Amboyna, January 1, 1858." 



The Secretary read " Descriptions of six New British Neuroptera sent by 

 Mr. Dale to the British Museum," by Dr. Hageu; and the following paper by Mr. 

 Newman : — 



Note on Scolytus destructor. 



" Having heard from Mr. Stainton that the Royal Botanic Society had awarded 

 a "•old medal to our fellow-member. Captain Cox, for certain successful experiments 

 in recovering elm trees from the attacks of Scolytus destructor, I was delighted to 

 receive for the press that elaborate paper with which the Society was favoured at its 

 last meeting. That paper is published in our ' Proceedings,' and will afford to 

 the world abundant proof that- we are now regarding Entomology in a utilitarian 

 as well as a scientific spirit. ' It is,' as the writer observes, ' peculiarly fitting that 

 Science should step in and prove that over one pest at least we have power, and if not 

 made use of the fault lies entirely with the public' I cannot sufficiently regret my 

 absence from so interesting a meeting, since, had I been present, I should have en- 

 deavoured to elicit still further information from a gentleman who has so successfully 

 studied this important branch of rural economy; more especially, as the Parisians, in 

 their bungling attempts to employ the draw-shave, have sacrificed the finest elm trees 

 around the French metropolis. I may perhaps be allowed to state, touching the 

 bibliography of Scolytus destructor, that I think Captain Cox scarcely goes back far 

 enough, when he dates the knowledge of its economy from 1840: previously to that 

 year the late M. Audouiu had thoroughly mastered its history; and six years earlier 

 still, an obscure writer iu the ' Entomological Magazine' (i. 425), under the assumed 

 name of Rusticus' — the habit of assuming names cannot be sufficiently reprobated — 

 described its economy so minutely as to induce the idea that Captain Cox must have 

 been at the writer's elbow even while he held the pen, and dictated what he wrote: 

 bef(n-e Rusticus, Kirby and Spence seem to have been cognizant of its doings ; and to 

 go back still further, the very name carries with it an idea of some knowledge of its 

 economy. Captain Cox has, however, added one most interesting fact overlooked by 

 previous writers : that ' the female dies at the entrance of her tube, thus performing a 

 maternal duty by closing the aperture to her young ones with her own dead body.' 

 The points, however, on which I would solicit for the Society additional information 

 are these : Captain Cox states his firm conviction that healthy trees are attacked by 

 Scolytus ; and that this insect is the cause of premature decay and eventual death. 

 He narrates with great perspicuity that eighteen dying elm trees were placed at his 

 disposal, that he experimented on every one of them, by taking off the surface bark 

 with a draw-shave; and that seventeen out of the eighteen completely recovered: the 

 operation is most simple, and I believe every one will admit that its very simplicity 

 adds to its beauty and its value. Before commencing his experiments, Captain Cox 

 numbered the trees from 1 to 18, and made a careful memorandum of the state of each ; 

 the summary of these memoranda may be thus briefly stated. Fifteen were suffering 

 severely from the ravages of Cossus ligniperda ; and out of these fifteen, nine were 

 also infested with Scolytus : three, making up the eighteen, were attacked by 

 Scolytus, but all these three "slightly." Now, to a superficial observer, it will occur 



