shells, &c., cast out by the ants. The seeds appeared to be stored inside 

 the nest, as in one that I opened the other day I found a large collection. 

 . . . . The species was a black ant; the formicarium was under 

 ground." 



Mr. Home had observed, in the open plains of India, a similar habit in 

 species of ants found there. Their pathways were often thirty feet in length, 

 and formed by cutting away the grass, &c., as noticed by Dr. White, and 

 the ants were constantly seen carrying full grass seeds into their nests : the 

 quantity of seeds was sometimes so great that five or six handsfull could be 

 collected from one nest. 



Prof. Westwood exhibited the type specimens of the creatures upon which 

 Latreille founded his Crustaceous genus Prosopistoma, with magnified 

 drawings of the same, and remarked thereon with reference to the statement 

 of Dr. Joly (as mentioned at the previous meeting), that these creatures 

 (which were from Madagascar) and ' le Binocle ' of Geoffroy, from the 

 neighbourhood of Paris, were immature conditions of species of Epheraeridge. 

 The creatures had no perceptible mouth organs, and in this respect did not 

 in any way accord with the earlier states of any species of Ephemeridae ; 

 neither did the structure of the legs, though those members were formed 

 differently from anything known in Crustacea. In external form, especially 

 in the largely developed carapace, there was some analogy with the pupa of 

 Bsetisca obesa, Say, one of the EphemeridEe, as described and figured by 

 the late B. D. Walsh, but there was little other similarity in the two 

 forms. 



Mr. M'Lachlan said he could not reconcile the structure of these types 

 of Prosopistoma with the idea that they pertained to the Ephemeridae. He 

 exhibited a series of examples, in alcohol, of Boreus californicus, sent 

 to him by Dr. Packard, the describer of the species. 



Mr. Albert Miiller read the following remarks : — 



" In a letter I lately received from Mr. Peter Cameron, jun., of Glasgow, 

 the writer asks ' Have you noticed that the galls on willows overhanging 

 rivers are only on the leaves above the land, very few, if any, being on the 

 leaves over the water? This is the case in this neighbourhood.' The gall 

 referred to by my correspondent is produced by Nematus Vallisnieri, Hartig. 

 I certainly have seldom, if ever, seen the galls on boughs overhanging water, 

 but the question requires further investigation. Baron von Osten-Sacken 

 has recorded the same thing of the American plum weevil {Conotrachelus 

 nenuphar), which, according to him, avoids trees overhanging water when 

 depositing its eggs. The question of ovipositing insects thus avoiding trees 

 in positions which may be dangerous to their brood, has some practical 

 bearing, where the conservation of foliage or fruit crops is of importance. I 



