2186 The Zoologist— June, J 870. 



Exhibitions, Sc. 



Mr. J. Jenner Weir (on behalf of Mr. James Vogan, who was present as a 

 Visitor) exhibited specimens of grain attacked by weevils : from 74 tons of 

 Spanish wheat 10 cwt. of weevils had been screened, and these must have con- 

 sumed several times their own weight of grain before arriving at maturity : in 

 August, 1868, some American maize was stored, weighing 145 tons ; in 

 August, 1869, this was found to be infested with weevils, and 6 cwt. of the 

 beetles were screened out ; in December 29 cwt. more were screened out, 

 making a ton and three-quarters in all. Specimens of the weevils were ex- 

 hibited, and in both cases tlie depredator proved to be the rice-weevil, Calandra 

 oryzae, and not C. granaria: along with the weevils were a few specimens of 

 Stene fen-uginea and of a Laemophlceus, the predatory larva of the latter being 

 the natural enemy of the Calandra. 



Prof. West wood observed that no description of the larva of Calandra granaria 

 had been published : it was comparatively a fatter and shorter larva than 

 Balaninus, distinguished from the usual form of Curculionidous larvsB by 

 having two recurved points or hooks at the extremity of the body, and changed 

 to the pupa within the grain. 



Mr. M'Lachlau mentioned that he had frequently noticed the walls of 

 Loudon granaries covered on the outside with Tinea granella. Mr. J. J. Weir 

 corroborated this, and added that the London sparrows might be seen to rise at 

 and catch the moths when the latter were disturbed ; in fact, the sparrow was 

 acquiring the habits of the flycatcher. 



Mr. Howard Vaughan exhibited numerous specimens of Dianthcecia cai-po- 

 phaga, showing great variation in colour, all bred from larvse found near Croydon 

 in 1868. 



Mr. J. J. Weir, with reference to Mr. Butler's suggestion of the identity of 

 Argynnis Adippe and Niobe, exhibited four specimens which had been sent to 

 him from St. Petersburg, one as the typical form of Adippe and another as its 

 variety Cledoxa, and one as the typical form of Niobe and another as its variety 

 Eris : the typical form of each had silvery spots on the under side, and these 

 were absent both fi-om Cledoxa and Eris ; but notwithstanding this parallelism 

 of variation, there was no greater approximation to one another in the two 

 varieties than there was in the two typical forms. Mr. Albert INIiiller remarked, 

 however, that svhat was regarded in Switzerland as the typical form of A. Niobe 

 did not possess the silvery spots on the under side. 



Mr. Albert Miiller (in reference to the note in Proc. Ent. Soc. 1869, p. xxv., 

 and ' Zoologist,' 1870, p. 2027) read the following extract from a letter received 

 from Mr. H. F. Bassett, of Waterbury, U. S. A., on the odour of Cynipidae : — 



" You speak of the peculiar odour of certain species of European gall-flies. 

 A similar odour is strongly apparent in three sub-apterous species of Cynips 

 that I have reared from the galls, namely, C. pezomachoides, Osten-Sacken, 

 C. forticornis, Walsh, and C. hirta, Bassett ; and I find that Dr. Fitch, in the 



