xvm 



Mr. Hewitson cominunicated the following note on Tacliyris Jacquinolii (see 

 Trans. Eut. Soc. 1868, p. 99) :— 



" I find, from a recent visit lo ibe Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, that the Pieris 

 described by Lucas under the name Jacquinolii is nolbing more tban a bij^bly- 

 coloured variety of P. albina, and when Mr. Wallace went over my collection I under- 

 stood that he considered it as such. It does not come, as staled by Lucas, from New 

 Guinea, but from New Caledonia, and has not, as I suggested, any relation with the 

 South-American P. Isandra." 



Mr. M'Lachlan raenlioned that the Anax mediterraueus of de Selys Longchamps, 

 which had on a solitary occasion been captured in the Island of Sardinia, but had been 

 rejected from the list of European dragon-flies, was observed in swarms at Turin and 

 in other parts of Italy by Dr. Ghiliani and others, on numerous occasions, from July to 

 September, 1867. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited a larva which he believed to be a Xantholinus, found 

 by Mr. O. Janson whilst digging in a sand-bank at Snaresbrook : attached by their 

 hinder extremities to the under side of this larva, on the 5th, 7th, 9th and 1 1 ih 

 segments respectively, were four pupae of a Hymenopterous parasite, probably a 

 Proctotrupes. 



Mr. F. Smith also exliibiied a Longicorn beetle, Cerosterna gladiator, and a large 

 Acheta, which were very destructive to forest-trees in Madras. 



Dr. Cleghorn, Conservator of Forests, Madras (who was present as a visitor), said 

 that these insects had done great damage in the young Casuarina plantations along 

 the Madras Railway. The attacks of the beetle were principally directed to the bark 

 of the trees; but the cricket generally bit off the leading shoots or primary branches. 

 It appeared suddenly in September, 1867, after some showers of rain at the end of the 

 hot season : during the night the larvse emerged from the sand, crawled up the young 

 ti'ees, and nibbled off the leading shoots (as a rabbit might have done), many of which, 

 six inches long, were found lying on the ground ; hundreds of trees had to be replaced 

 on the railway-banks in consequence of their depredations. The best way to save the 

 trees was lo employ boys to dig out the larvas from the tortuous galleries or passages 

 which they made in the sand to a depth of ten to fifteen inches, and large enough 

 to admit the little finger: he had had bushels of them dug out of their burrows 

 and destroyed. In reply to inquiries. Dr. Cleghorn stated that he had himself 

 frequently seen the larvae crawling up the stems, and was convinced ihat they 

 were the authors of ihe injury, but he had never seen them in the act of cutting off 

 the shoots. 



Mr. Trimen mentioned, as a parallel case, a tree-cricket at the Cape which eats 

 the terminal shoots of the silver-tree {Leucodendron argenteum), by which, however, the 

 shoots are not wantonly bitten off, but are consumed for food. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited eight kinds of larvae from India, all of which were 

 described as " borers," and as causing great damage to the coffee and other trees. 

 Three of them appeared to be Lepidopterous ; one, the " red borer" of Ceylon, which 

 attacks a tree in the middle of the stem and works its way upwards through the pith, 

 belonged to a species of Zenzera ; a second, which was a somewhat similar larva, was 

 found in the pith of the charcoal tree (Sponia Wighlii); the third, the "great white 

 borer," also looked like a Zenzera, and was usually found at the root of coffee and 



