kingfishers, plover, landrail, swans, geese, and nearly all game birds, together 

 with many of the small birds, lend their aid in checking the increase of the 

 locusts. How advisable is it, therefore, that the wanton destruction of these 

 birds should be put a stop to.' " 



Mr. Home related some of his experiences concerning locusts in India, 

 the species being probably Acrydium peregrinum. Their numbers were 

 such that they could often be collected by tons, and they were fed upon by 

 almost every description of animal, including cows, camels, goats, &c. ; and 

 they were also eaten, when cooked, by man ; he had himself partaken of 

 them. The castor-oil plant certainly had no injurious effect upon the 

 Indian species, though they evidently suffered from the leaves of the 

 tamarind-tree, which acted as a purgative to such a degree, that the surface 

 of the ground beneath one of these trees attacked by them, had often more 

 than an inch deep of their droppings accumulated upon it. 



I April, 1872. 



Prof. J. 0. Westwood, M.A., F.L.S., President, in the chair. 



Dr. A. S. Packard, jun., of Salem, U. S. A., was present as a Visitor. 



Donations to the Lihrary. 



The following donations were announced, and thanks voted to the 

 donors: — 'Proceedings of the Royal Society,' No. 132; presented by the 

 Society. ' The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' for April ; by the 

 Editors. ' Lepidoptera Exotica,' part 12 ; by E. W. Janson. ' The 

 Journal of the Quekett Microscopical Club,' No. 18 ; by the Club. 



Exhibitions, cdx. 

 Prof. Westwood exhibited a large woody gall found at the foot of a young 

 oak tree, from which the gall-flies were then escaping (Mr. Albert Miiller 

 considered it to be the work of Cynips Q-radicis). He also exhibited 

 drawings made under the microscope, from microscopic slides prepared by 

 Mr. Whitmarsh, of Wilton, near Salisbury, of various species of Cynipidae 

 mounted in Canada balsam. Among these were both sexes of the species 

 forming the artichoke-gall of the oak; the males with fifteen, and the 

 females with fourteen, joints to the antennae. The female of the hard 

 globular gall at the tips of oak-shoots had thirteen joints to the antennae ; 

 the hind wing, close to the pterostigmatical region, was furnished with four 

 long slender hooks, bent at right angles in the middle, connecting the wings 

 during flight ; the ovipositor and its two spicula were long, curved, and 



D 



