XXXVlll 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited some comb from a wasp's nest sent to him in 

 October from Gloucestershire, the larvae and pupae in which had been 

 destroyed by a Dipterous parasite, Phora florea : on a single larva or pupa 

 of the wasp, for both were attacked indiscriminately, there were in some 

 instances twelve or fourteen larvae of the Phora, and the whole inside was 

 consumed, leaving a mere shell, like the cast-off skin of a shrimp ; out of 

 200 — 300 cells, not more than a dozen wasps escaped. 



Mr. Verrall mentioned that he had once put a hornet in a box, and on 

 looking at it after a considerable time, found four or five specimens of a 

 Phora had emerged ; so that all three stages of larva, pupa and imago 

 seemed to be liable to the attacks of Phora. Bouche also had recorded the 

 breeding of Phora from a species of Crabro. 



Prof. Westwood mentioned that he had recently been breeding in numbers 

 the continental olive-feeding Phloeotribus olese from an ash tree growing 

 near Halifax. The tree, however, was imported from France, so that the 

 beetle could not yet be regarded as British, though it would doubtless 

 become naturalized here. He had dissected it, and found that it really 

 belonged to the Tomicus group. 



Mr. Albert Miiller exhibited, in "spirits, a full-fed larva of ^gosoma 

 scabricorne ; and a piece of the bark of a lime tree, showing the exit-hole of 

 the imago. On St. Peter's bastion at Basle there were formerly some lime 

 trees, and on the 8th of March, 1868, one of the old trees was blown down 

 during a hail storm ; the larvse thrown out of the shattered trunk were 

 picked up by Herr Stehelin Imhoff, and that exhibited was one of them. 

 In the spring of 1869 all the trees were felled, and in one, of much smaller 

 size than that blown down in 1868, were a considerable number of the 

 larvse in all stages of development. The larva is of the usual Prionid form, 

 and is described by Mulsant in Ann. Soc. Linn, de Lyon for 1855, 

 reprinted in his Opusc. \i. 46. The habit of the beetle was to fly in the 

 twihght, and rest during the day on the bark, by preference in a cavity 

 sheltered from the sun : it occurred in July, August and September : in 

 Jidy, 1865, Mr. H. Knecht took thirty-eight specimens at Basle ; in August, 

 1866, twenty-five specimens, whilst in 1868 only a single specimen was 

 captured, on the 8th of September. At the same spot, Osmoderma eremita 

 occurred both in 1865 and 1866; and in the latter year, Aromia moschata 

 was plentiful. 



Paper read. 



The following paper was read : — " Descriptions of Diurnal Lepidoptera, 

 chiefly Hesperiidae," by Mr. A. G. Butler. Besides eleven new species of 

 Nymphalidse, and one of Papilionidaj, the characters are given of two new 

 genera and sixty-nine new species of Hesperiidae, a considerable proportion 

 of them from Venezuela. 



