26 
him by Mr. James Morris, the representative in this country of the Mauritian Cham- 
ber of Agriculture. Mr. Morris (who was present as a visitor) said that the insects 
had attacked the young leaves as soon as they came out, both in Mauritius and 
Réunion; they had never been noticed before, and were supposed to have been intro- 
duced into the islands from France or Belgium. The sugar-growers were very 
anxious to hear of some remedy; the employment of children to pick the insects off 
and destroy them had been suggested, and the use of sulphur, which had been success- 
fully applied for the vine-disease, had also been recommended. They had formerly 
suffered considerably in Mauritius from the borer insect (Diatura Sacchari), and in 
some quarters the injury was still continued; but at his (Mr. Morris’s) suggestion, 
some of the planters dipped the heads of the canes, before planting, in a weak solution 
of carbolic acid very much diluted in water, and it was found that the canes grew 
vigorously and were not attacked by the borer. 
Prof. Westwood remarked that the use of sulphur for the vine-disease had cer- 
tainly produced a most beneficial result; the application of carbolic acid, which had 
proved successful with the borer, ought to be tried as a preventative of the attacks of 
the Coccus ; the young plants might be washed with the solution, but to get rid of the 
insects when once they had settled upon the plants he apprehended that a manual 
application would be required. 
Mr. Bates asked whether there was any destroyer of Cocci which could be readily im- 
ported. It would be difficult to organize an immigration of Coccophagi (Chalcidide). 
Mr. F. Smith exhibited some singularly elaborate and beautifully coloured 
drawings of Lepidoptera belonging to Mr. W. S. Atkinson, of Calcutta, and executed 
by Indian artists ; among them were the sexes of Epicopeia Polydora, exhibiting pecu- 
liar variation in the form of the hind wings, and the rare Calinaga Buddha, Moore. 
‘Mr. F. Smith also exhibited a British female specimen of a Bombus which was 
unknown to him; it was captured by his son on Deal Sands; the head resembled that 
of B. hortorum, whilst the rest of the insect was like B. Lapponicus; he had as yet 
been unable to determine the species. 
Mr. F. Smith also exhibited a series of six wasps’ nests of most singular construe- 
tion, belonging to Mr. Stone, of Brighthampton; each was built in a cubical wooden 
box, and all were of different and fantastic shapes, one being an imitation of a stalac- 
tite cave, whilst another not inaptly represented Stonehenge. The whole of the series 
had been executed by the same colony of Vespa germanica, without a queen, in thirty- 
eight days of September and October, 1862; No. 1 of the series was completed in two 
days, No.2 in four days, No. 3 in seven days, No. 4 in fifteen days, No. 5 in five days, 
and No.6 in five days. He had only that day received the nests, with a letter from 
Mr. Stone, of which the following was an extract :— Of these nests I may remark that 
the extraordinary thing is that one set of wasps should have executed the entire series, 
and also the very short space of time in which some of the specimens were completed. 
The fifth and sixth of the series are certainly very extraordinary productions. In the 
roof of these examples the arrangement of the cones is beautifully shown.” Mr. Smith 
hoped before the next Meeting to obtain information from Mr. Stone as to the means 
employed to compel or induce the wasps to make these abnormal constructions. 
Mr. F. Smith read the following further extract from Mr. Stone’s letter:-— 
“‘The present season bids fair to be a more favourable one for our favourite Order 
than any one since the disastrous year 1860. I think I never saw the commoner spe- 
cies of Bombi so plentiful. Wasps, too, are in great force, and they commenced their 
