NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 99 



many entomologists were present, and the exhibits were keenly 

 appreciated. Microscopists were well provided for, since a num- 

 ber of unusually interesting slides were on view. The display » 

 of Old English Folk Dances was a step in the right direction, 

 and the exhibition of the hundred editions to which Gilbert 

 White's ' Natural History ' has now run, together with that of 

 the original MS., afforded much pleasure to the very numerous 

 members and guests assembled. 



Would that the Rev. T. A. Marshall or Mr. Joe Dunning were 

 yet amongst us to do an essay upon the work recently published 

 by the American Ent. Soc, of which Mr. Meyrick has given us 

 so lucid and masterly an account in a current contemporary ! 

 If a Society's scientific status is gauged by the quality of its 

 Transactions, vol. xxxiii. of that quoted will stand as an inerasible 

 blot and detract very seriously from its prestige. We do not know 

 Mr. Kearfott ; but he has stirred up more animation in this 

 country than we have seen displayed for a long time. The 

 greatest motive power among us is still discussion upon priority; 

 the word is instinct with electricity in every study and museum. 

 " Th€ earliest name shall stand," cries one. " Let us at least 

 have common sense, of which science is the essence," protests a 

 second. " Eucosma kokana, lolana, nomana, nonana," another 

 quotes, and so ad nauseam. t . -^. El'^TY OF" 



7 p, M^ffcALF 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Labidura riparia. — In "By the Way" {antea, p. 76) we are told 

 that all the Christchurch records of Lahiclura 7-iparia come from the 

 base of Hengistbury Head. Whether the records do or not I cannot 

 say, but I think it is doubtful if the earwig itself did. In the two 

 haunts (possibly out of a larger number) near Bournemouth its 

 habits suggest that the soil of the " bluff " is unsuitable for it, and I 

 have never been able to find a specimen there, although it is easy 

 enough to find them in the other two spots. I invariably get them 

 on a certain kind of sandy cliff, of which there seems to be none 

 similar at Hengistbury. It appears to me more likely that " Christ- 

 church " referred to any part of that coast, while it was the chief 

 town in the district, Bournemouth being non-existent, or practically 

 so. — W. J. Lucas. 



New British Proctotrypid^. — It seems advisable to publish 

 the following list of new Proctotrypidae which I have taken in Britain 

 at various times, and have given to Dr. Kieffer: — Paragryon algicola, 

 Kief., n. s.. Boll. Lab. Zool. Portici. iv. (1910) p. 343. Males and 

 females taken under seaweed at Fishbourne, Isle of Wight, in com- 

 pany with Actinopteryx fucicola, Actidium coarctation, and other 

 Coleoptera. — Loxotroija pedisequa, Kief., n. s. " Angleterre (H. Donis- 



