XX 
was likely to have produced the eggs, but no Member present had before 
heard of a similar instance. 
Mr. W. A. Lewis exhibited an earthenware jar, of Chinese manufacture, 
about the shape of an ordinary tobacco-jar, and which was being used as 
such by a friend some time resident in China, from whom he obtained it. 
His friend narrated that the same description of jar was used by the 
inhabitants of Pekin for the purpose of confining what was termed the 
“oreat fighting beetle.” According to him the Chinese used this beetle for 
sporting purposes. Each was placed in a separate jar and allowed no 
nutriment other than water absorbed by the very thick porous bottom of 
the jar. Under this treatment they became very ferocious, and were then 
pitted one against the other. 
Prof. Westwood reminded the meeting that the Chinese had long been 
known to employ Mantide in a similar manner. 
Mr. Lewis, Mr. M‘Lachlan and other Members brought before the notice 
of the meeting, paragraphs that had been going the round of the newspapers, 
concerning a phcenomenon observed apparently on two recent occasions at 
Bath; it appearing that after violent storms the ground was covered with 
some creatures, variously described as Annelides and Insects, which had 
baffled the knowledge possessed by the ‘ scientific men” of that city. 
Prof. Westwood thought the creatures were probably Branchipus stag- 
nalis, a large fresh-water entomostracon. 
Mr. Miller communicated the following note on a gall found on Pteris 
aquilina ;— 
“Tn March, 1869, Mr. Rothney placed in my hands a chip-box con- 
taining a dessicated excrescence of about the size of a very large pea, and 
some Cynipideous insects, as well as two specimens of a Callimome. Mr. 
Rothney informed me at the same time that he had found this excrescence 
on the common bracken (Pteris aquilina) at Shirley. The excrescence was 
bleached to a straw-colour, but its condition prevented my being able to 
form a correct opinion as to the plant from which it was taken; and 
besides I then knew of no gall on any fern. On dissecting the gall I found 
it composed of an accumulation of small larval cells, some of them still 
containing dead specimens of the maker. The insects being in a very bad 
condition, I did not think it worth my while to examine them, so I carded 
them with the excrescence and put them aside. 
“Having lately had occasion to peruse Professor Schenck’s work on the 
Cynipidee of Nassau, I found (at p. 127) the following observation :— 
‘No. 69. There is in the collection of Herr von Heyden a gall on the 
bracken (Pteris aquilina), similar to that of Diastrophus rubi; a swelling 
on the upper side of the stem, curved, resembling an episcopal staff, 1—2” 
long, full of roundish pierced cells, pale yellowish; a similar straight one in 
