104 



here, and all the South-of-Europe Cicada?, are very active, and exceedingly difficult 

 to get hold of. The injury they do is this. The female with her ovipositor makes se- 

 veral incisions in the hark of the small branches of trees, and in each incision lays 

 about one hundred kidney-shaped white eggs. In about a week or ten days the branch 

 withers and falls to the ground, when the grubs, which are then hatched, penetrate 

 into the earth and remain there, as they say, seventeen years. The trees have suffered 

 so much, that the woods have quite an autumnal appearance.'' 



Mr. Spence also communicated the following extract of a letter from Signor Carlo 

 Passerini, of Florence, Honorary Foreign Member of the Society : — 



(Translation). — "This autumn I have had the fortune to find the habitat, where 

 it undergoes all its transformations, of the rare teredile Denops personatus, and soon I 

 shall publish its history with plates, which I believe will augment the known notices 

 (and they are very few) of the Terediles. I have collected several specimens of this 

 pretty Coleopterous insect, which I shall be able to impart to entomologists. Iu an- 

 nouncing this to English entomologists, you may say that I reserve a couple of this 

 Denops for each. Kemember me particularly to Messrs. Capt. Parry, Thwaites, Cur- 

 tis, Westwood, and G. R. Gray, and I shall be well content if they ask from me Coleo- 

 ptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera of Tuscany." 



Mr. Stainton read an extract of a letter from J. C. Bowring, Esq., Corresponding 

 Member of the Society, dated Hong Kong, June 9. 



" I inclose a pair of Cyclosomus insularis, White, a species I met with yesterday 

 morning for the first time. This beetle burrows to some depth in the sand by the sea- 

 shore ; it is very active in its movements, and when exposed on the surface disappears 

 beneath the sand with truly wonderful rapidity, diving down head foremost. I cap- 

 tured about twenty specimens by turning up the sand for some distance to the depth 

 of five or six inches." 



Mr. White read the following extracts of a letter from Mr. Bowring, dated Hong 

 Kong, June 2. 



" Captain Champion tells me that you entomologists at home will not believe my 

 account of the parasite on Fulgora. Now yesterday I showed Mr. Harrington a spe- 

 cimen which I have just reared, the moth having come out a day or two ago — a fine 

 male, with beautifully pectinated antennae. The pupa-case with its cottony covering 

 is well preserved. This specimen I intend to send to the Entomological Society. 

 Among my most recent captures are my Cicindela speculifera, now out, and of which 

 I took fifteen specimens yesterday, also a few of the three other species of which I 

 sent specimens to the British Museum last year. The other day, when up at Can- 

 ton, I got no less than thirty-two specimens of C. Chinensis — magnificent fellows, as 

 perfect as can be. The insect is in every collection, but all the specimens are villan- 

 ous things, with great May-poles of needles stuck through them. I have also taken 

 some very beautiful Carabideous insects this spring ; a fine Panagseus, like P. quadri- 

 maculatus, one or two species like Pogonus, and some which I cannot make out, one 

 particularly, which belongs to the Truncatipennes, and has the labrum produced into 

 a long snout, like some of the Cistelae. Another capture made this spring is one which 

 surprised me not a little ; viz., a fine Creophilus, quite as large as, and closely resem- 

 bling, our C. maxillosus. Are you aware of any other species from the tropics? Ca- 

 rabus Lafossei is another fine thing I have added to my cabinet lately ; and I hope 

 this summer to get some good specimens of C. prodigus from the hilly country N. W. 

 of Canton." 



