Dec. 1894.] HOTAXICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 299 



a quantity of these beans had been imported by Messrs. 

 ^lelchers, liunge, & Co., of Fenchurch Avenue, we wrote to 

 them to ask if they would sell us a few of the beans, and 

 received the following reply : — 



"We have your note of 14tli inst,, and in reply we beg- 

 to say that our broker has bought the last lot of about 

 ;"00 from us at lOd. each, and we are informed that he 

 has sold them at considerably higher prices. We could let 

 you have up to 500 at this price, but not in smaller lots 

 than 50, and if you will take the whole lot of about 3000 

 we would take a lower price into consideration." 



We wrote for 50, and having mentioned them to our 

 son, Dr. Charles Sprague, who resides at Hochst-am-Maiu, 

 he told us he had recently seen an account of them in 

 the German scientific paper entitled " Promotheus." He 

 .subsequently forwarded to us a copy of ^NTo. 262 of the 

 paper, and the following is a brief abstract of the inform- 

 ation contained in it : — 



The shape of the so-called beans shows a botanist that each 

 is the third part of the fruit of a plant belonging to the 

 Euphorbiaceie. Each bean contains the larva of a small 

 moth, Carpoccvpsa saltitans, which is closely allied to the 

 moth whose larva infests apples and pears {Carpoca'psa 

 PomoncUa). Westwood described it in 1858 in the 

 " Proceedings of the Entomological Society." It was very 

 soon after described by Lucas, in France, who gave it the 

 name Carpocapsa JDcliaisiana ; and it is still known by that 

 name in France, but everywhere else, in accordance with 

 the rule of priority, it is known by the name which West- 

 wood gave it. 



Although the insect has been known nearly forty 

 years, the plants which produce the so-called beans have 

 only been known to science Cjuite recently. 



They grow in the neighbourhood of the Mexican town 

 Alamos, in the province of Sonora, and belong to the genus 

 Schastiania, three or four species of which harbour the 

 insect. The juice of the plant is very poisonous, and the 

 wood of Schastiania Pavoniana is so deadly that a dish of 

 food or a cup of liquid will be rendered poisonous if it be 

 simply stirred with a piece of the wood. 



If the bean is opened when the larva is full grown, the 



