XXX 



most of the protruding masses of rock ; I placed it in spirit, but it has become 

 shrunken and turned to a dirty yellowish colour. Such things, however, require 

 to be seen alive in order to properly appreciate the close resemblance they bear 

 to the particular objects they resemble." 



Mr. De Grey mentioned that he had often been struck by the resemblance 

 of the caterpillar of Melitaea Cinxia to the flower of the plantain upon which it 

 feeds, whilst the pupa resembled the seed of the same plant. 



Mr. Albert Miiller exhibited some galls on Ammophila arundinacea, found 

 last autumn by Mr. J. Traill about two miles north of Aberdeen ; they 

 occurred rather abundantly on stunted specimens, one gall on each plant. The 

 gall consisted of the imbricate closely-sheathed leaves of a top-shoot, and 

 contained a single longitudinal narrow cell, from two to three lines long, the 

 upper part of which was pierced by the escaping insect. The insect, however, 

 had not yet been detected. 



The Secretary exhibited a large woolly gall of the oak and a number of 

 living specimens of Cynips ramuli which had emerged therefrom. The gall 

 was found on the 24th of June, at Idsworth, near Horndean, by Sir J. Clarke 

 Jervoise, Bart., who wrote respecting it as follows : — 



" My attention was yesterday called to what T thought was a ball of sheeps' 

 wool in a meadow where there were no sheep, and I placed it under a glass 

 clock-shade for security. This morning I found the clock had stopped, and a 

 quantity of flies were in the case and in the works of the clock. I never 

 happened to have seen a similar growth on the oak, a sprig of which is 

 visible in the woolly gall, and I have sent some of the flies in spirits. There 

 are more hatched out in the box since I placed the oak-gall in it." (How many 

 specimens of the Cynips hatched in the clock-case did not appear, but the box 

 exhibited was found to contain upwards of eighty.) 



Prof. Westwood made some observations en a very minute form of Acaridse, 

 to which he had already directed the attention of the Society (see Proc. Ent. 

 Soc. 1864, p. 30) ; they were about ^^ of an inch in length, found in the 

 unopened buds of the black currant, the blossom of which they destroyed ; 

 they were elongate, cylindrical and fleshy, and possessed only four legs, 

 A somewhat similar form found in galls was some years ago described in 

 France ; and the Rev. M. J. Berkeley had recently called Prof. Westwood's 

 attention to a third form which attacks pear trees, and makes small patches 

 or pustules on the leaves. At Oxford he had found many of these blotches, 

 and as many as thirty or forty Acari in a single blotch ; in some cases 

 there was a small opening in the leaf, but in the majority there was no 

 visible aperture ; perhaps the parent when depositing her eggs makes a small 

 hole which afterwards closes over. Notwithstanding the existence of only two 

 pairs of legs, he thought these were a mature form; and the three species 



