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the garden to look at my " speciosa : " the ten stems had nothing on them hut some 

 hard seed-capsules, every leaf, flower, and hud was devoured, and the stems bending 

 from the weight of these Galerucae. I determined on revenge. I ordered two ' chil- 

 lumchees ' (large, circular, shallow brass pans, which are used in this country for the 

 water to fall into as the ' bearer' pours it into your joined hands to wash your face 

 with, and also to wash your feet in) to be put under the stems and half filled with boil- 

 ing water, the stems were then shaken, and the insects that did not fall were knocked 

 into them as they attempted flight ; at least 1000 were thus destroyed. But now for 

 the wonderment. The Oenothera speciosa is one of three kinds of that plant that I 

 have raised from American seeds. I had blossoming in my garden one plant of 03. 

 speciosa, and several of (E. salicifolia and longicaulis. These plants were never grown 

 in this country before this rainy season, and certainly never blossomed. The speciosa 

 does not flower till the second year, but still, an insect produced in this country, which 

 could never have tasted or felt the perfume of this American plant, nor could even its 

 progenitors have done so, selects it, the only one of its species in my grounds or in the 

 country, for its food, destroys it completely, and touches no other! How can you ac- 

 count for this? Could the CE. speciosa have had a perfume (to me the flower has but 

 a slight scent) so strong to the senses of this insect as to attract it in the mass ? Please 

 to ask any entomological friends if that is the way they can account for this proceed- 

 ing, or can it be accounted for in any other manner ? " 



Mr. Saunders remarked that he had once seen this beetle (G. Lawsonia?) in im- 

 mense numbers in a paddy-field near Calcutta. 



Mr. Douglas remarked that probably the usual food of this Galeruca was some 

 plant of the same natural order as (Enothera, for he once, in this country, found cater- 

 pillars of Cucullia Verbasci feeding on Buddlea globosa, a native of Chili, belonging 

 to the same natural order as Verbascum, on the leaves of which they usually feed. 



Mr. Douglas read descriptions of ten species of Gelechia, being the completion 

 of his Memoir on the British species of that genus. On a future occasion he intended 

 to offer some observations on the structural characters of the genus, and now, at the 

 request of many friends, he gave the following provisional arrangement of the species, 

 according to the characters indicated by Zeller, in the ' Isis,' 1839. 



