Exhibitions, dc. 



Mr. Staintou exhibited a twig of cork-oak (Quercus siiber) from Cannes, 

 placed in his hands by Mr. Moggridge, bearing examples of a large black, 

 berry-like Coccus. 



Prof. Westwood exhibited a cotton-hke mass enveloping the cocoons of a 

 minute parasitic hymenopterous insect of the genus Microgaster, which 

 infested the caterpillar of some large species of Bombycidse in Ceylon. The 

 mass was the product of the parasites of a single larva. He had extracted 

 therefrom 717 of the parasites, and, as many more remained, there could be 

 little doubt but that about 1000 of these insects had been nourished within 

 this single caterpillar. 



Mr. F. Moore stated that he had observed a similar occurrence in a larva 

 of a species of Odonestis from Bombay. 



Prof. Westwood also exhibited an apple-twig, the buds of which were 

 destroyed by some small larva, apparently pertaining to the Tortricidas. 

 The outside of the twig was much blackened, and he thought this had some 

 connection with the presence of the larvae. 



Mr. Stainton observed that the larva of Laverna atra fed within the 

 shoots of apple, but he could not say that the twig exhibited was infested by 

 that species. 



Mr. Staintou exhibited a drawing of a vine-leaf mined by the larva of 

 Antispila Rivillei, and a bred specimen of the perfect insect, which had 

 appeared on the 23rd of May last. He prefaced the exhibition with the 

 following remarks : — 



" The exhibition T am about to make is iu many respects the most 

 interesting I shall ever make in the course of my life ; it seems to border 

 upon the domain of prehistoric Entomology : we must go back, before the 

 appearance of the first volume of De Geer's Memoirs, to a period little later 

 than the conclusion of Reaumur's Memoirs, to find the last previous notice 

 of the existence of this insect. That notice, in the form of a letter from 

 Godeheu de Riville, a Knight of Malta, to the illustrious Reaumur, was 

 printed in extenso in the first volume of the ' Memoires de Mathematique et 

 de Physique, presentes a I'Academie Royale des Sciences' in 1750. A 

 translation of this notice by Goeze appeared in 1755 in the fourth volume 

 of the ' Naturforscher,' and Fuessly, who reproduced many of Goeze's notes 

 on Lepidoptera in the second volume of his Magazine, in 1779, also repeated 

 the notice of this insect. 



" A period of seventy-five years then elapsed before any further printed 

 notice appears having reference to this species, and it will be necessary 

 therefore to point out the successive steps which have contributed to its 

 rediscovery. 



