129 



With reference to the note on Ocypus* olens, read at the last meeting, Mr. Curtis 

 said that in the 'Gardener's Chronicle' of November 5, 1842, he had made the follow- 

 ing note on this insect, showing the value of these persecuted animals in gardens, es- 

 pecially in the autumn, when earwigs are most abundant and destructive to flowers:— 



" Having heard that our rove-beetle was the natural enemy of earwigs, I placed 

 one with a few of these insects under a tumbler glass. It commenced running round 

 the inside, now and then resting, but it soon seized an immature earwig by the mid- 

 dle, and a full-grown one soon after, just behind the forceps, the back being upper- 

 most, and in an hour and a half it had eaten six earwigs." 



Mr. Curtis then referred to vol. i. p. 107 of the new series of this Society's Trans- 

 actions, where, as one of the Gelechiae, Mr. Douglas has recorded Butalis cerealella as 

 a native insect. Mr. Curtis expressed his belief that Mr. Douglas's specimen was 

 imported, and that fortunately the species was not British, for in France corn in gra- 

 naries decreased from 40 to 70 W cent, by its feeding thereon. He further observed 

 that the species is well characterized by its extremely falcate inferior wings, and is 

 apparently related to Stephens's genus Cleodora, which is established by dissections 

 in plate 671 of the 'British Entomology,' though now included by Mr. Douglas in the 

 genus Gelechia, which, as it now stands in Mr. Stainton's Catalogue, is a most hetero- 

 geneous group. Mr. Curtis expressed his regret that we cannot come to some under- 

 standing regarding generic names, for until they are settled, science must be a laby- 

 rinth not easily comprehended by the learned entomologist, and incomprehensible to 

 the young student in Natural History. 



Mr. Spence read an extract of a letter from G. H. Thwaites, Esq., M.E.S., now in 

 Ceylon, informing him that he had lectured to a mixed audience of Europeans and 

 Cingalese, on the habits and instincts of insects, especially directing attention to the 

 Termites, with a view to the study of their metamorphoses. He suggested that the 

 two kinds of workers did not undergo any subsequent change. 



The President read a note from Albert Way, Esq., stating that in a basket of old 

 Roman bones, sent a year or more since to Mr. Quekett, at the College of Surgeons, 

 for examination, were found, after a long interval, a great number of Obrium minu- 

 tura, which had doubtless proceeded from the willows of which the basket was made. 

 The President said that Mr. Stevens had once brought a similar case before the Society ; 

 and Mr. Smith added that he had more than once reared this beetle from bramble-sticks. 



Mr. Stevens exhibited a very fine variety of Argynnis Paphia, beautifully suffused 

 with black, which had been captured in 1849 at Darenth Wood. 



The President read the following extract of a letter from Brigadier J. B. Hearsey, 

 dated Wuzeerabad, August 6, 1851, and exhibited the insects referred to. 



" As I was sitting in my flower-garden on the 4th of this month, with a ' bearer' 

 fanning me with a large date-palm-leaf fan, he called my attention to a large showy 

 plant of CEnothera speciosa, which he was aware I was taking great care of, covered 

 with insects. It was then three feet high, and had eight or ten branches ; the whole 

 was densely covered with insects (the Galeruca sent herewith) ; they could not have 

 been on it half an hour, and it was almost denuded of foliage and flowers. I drove 

 them all off, and put twenty or thirty into a bottle of spirit of wine. The sun had now 

 set, and soon after I went into my house, as it is not wholesome to sit out of doors in 

 such hot, steamy nights. The next morning, the moment I was dressed, I went into 



* Erichson, Gaubil, &c, adopt this name, and not Goerius. 



R 



