The Zoologist — January, 1873, 3375 



Mr. Davis exhibited a large collection of beautifully preserved larvae of 

 various insects. 



Prof. Westwood exhibited a collection of drawings of the transformations 

 of Indian Lepidoptera (chiefly Heterocera), executed by Major Hunter. 



Prof. Westwood further made some remarks on the habits of the common 

 gnat. He had observed none in his house at Oxford till about July ; but 

 from then up to the present time there were swarms in certain rooms every 

 night, making their presence known by flying to the lights. All were 

 females, which sex alone is known to torment man by its bites. They were 

 carefully destroyed each day ; yet, although both doors and windows were 

 closed, they were daily replaced by a fresh swarm, and he could only account 

 for their presence by supposing they came down the chimneys. 



A letter was read from the Secretary of the Haggerstone Entomological 

 Society, inviting the Members to their annual exhibition of insects on the 

 14th and 15th inst. 



Palmers read, S^c. 



Mr. Miiller read the following, and exhibited specimens of the beetle : — 



" Notes on the Habits of Ozognatlms eornutus, Lee. 



" On his visit to Eui'ope last year, Mr. Riley, the State Entomologist of 

 Missouri, presented me with a large cynipideous, potato-shaped, poly- 

 thalamous oak-gall, from California, which I exhibited to this Society on 

 the 6th of November, 1871. 



" Mr. Piiley proposes the name of Quercus 'californica for this gall, 

 which he thinks is undescribed, and specimens of which have been seen by 

 Baron von Osten-Sacken and Mr. H. F. Bassett, the leading authorities 

 on American Cynipidse. The name which the maker of the gall will there- 

 fore have to bear will be Cynips californica. 



" As the gall in question was riddled by numerous exit-holes, some 

 larger ones (two millimetres in diameter) represented those of the Cynips, 

 while several smaller round ones (one millimetre in diameter), betokened the 

 escape of an insect of a different size. I left it lying on my mantelpiece 

 until the 20th of May last, thinking that nothing further could be bred 

 from it. In this I was agreeably disappointed, as in the morning of the 

 said day a small hillock of yellowish worm-eaten dust underneath an 

 opening in course of formation warned me that the gall was still tenanted 

 by living creatures. Of course the specimen was at once consigned to a 

 glass vessel, and thenceforward watched as often as convenient. In the 

 evening of the same day I observed that the identical hole had assumed the 

 neat circular shape of the smaller sized openings scattered over the surface 

 of the gall, and that a small, black, shining beetle had made its appearance 

 in the vessel. This Coleopteron, I have since been informed by Mr. Riley, 

 to whom I sent two pairs, was first described by Leconte in the Proc. Acad. 



