Tue Zootocist—APriL, 1872. $033 
three or four ants would unite in carrying one burden. Near the formicarium 
was a great mass of débris, consisting of empty pods, twigs, emptied snail- 
shells, &c., cast out by the ants. The seeds appeared to be stored inside 
the nest, as in one that I opened the other day I found a large collection. 
. The species was a black ant; the formicarium was under ground.” 
Mr. Horne had observed, in the open plains of India, a similar habit in 
species of ants found there. Their pathways were often thirty feet in length, 
and formed by cutting away the grass, &c., as noticed by Dr. White, and 
the ants were constantly seen carrying full grass seeds into their nests: the 
quantity of seeds was sometimes so great that five or six handsfull could be 
collected from one nest. 
Prof. Westwood exhibited the type specimens of the creatures upon which 
Latreille founded his Crustaceous genus Prosopistoma, with magnified 
drawings of the same, and remarked thereon with reference to the statement 
of Dr. Joly (as mentioned at the previous meeting), that these creatures 
(which were from Madagascar) and ‘le Binocle’ of Geoffroy, from the 
neighbourhood of Paris, were immature conditions of species of Ephemeride. 
The creatures had no perceptible mouth organs, and in this respect did not 
in any way accord with the earlier states of any species of Ephemeride ; 
neither did the structure of the legs, though those members were formed 
. differently from anything known in Crustacea. In external form, especially 
in the largely developed carapace, there was some analogy with the pupa of 
Betisca obesa, Say, one of the Ephemeride, as described and figured by 
the late B. D. Walsh, but there was little other similarity in the two 
forms. 
Mr. M‘Lachlan said he could not reconcile the structure of these types 
of Prosopistoma with the idea that they pertained to the Ephemeride. He 
exhibited a series of examples, in alcohol, of Boreus californicus, sent 
to him by Dr. Packard, the describer of the species, which was remarkable 
for its large size. 
Mr. Albert Miller read the following remarks :— 
“Tn a letter I lately received from Mr. Peter Cameron, jun., of Glasgow, 
the writer asks ‘ Have you noticed that the galls on willows overhanging 
rivers are only on the leaves above the land, very few, if any, being on the 
leaves over the water? ‘This is the case in this neighbourhood.’ The gall 
referred to by my correspodent is produced by Nematus Vallisnieri, Hartig. 
I certainly have seldom, if ever, seen the galls on boughs overhanging water, 
but the question requires further investigation. Baron von Osten Sacken 
has recorded the same thing of the American plum weevil (Conotrachelus 
nenuphar), which, according to him, avoids trees overhanging water when 
depositing its eggs. The question of ovipositing insects thus avoiding trees 
in positions which may be dangerous to their brood has some practical 
