Tue ZooLtocist—J UNE, 1876. 4969 
Mr. Distant exhibited a series of six examples of the butterfly Ithomia 
Tutia, Hewitson, from Costa Rica. These had been selected to show the 
very considerable variation in markings to which the species is evidently 
liable. 
Mr. Distant also communicated remarks on the Rhopalocera of Costa 
Rica, with Descriptions of Species not included in the Catalogue of Messrs. 
Butler and Druce, published in the « Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ 
for the year 1874. 
Mr. Douglas exhibited specimens of the Corozo nut (Phytelephas macro- 
carpa), the vegetable ivory of commerce, of which the interiors were entirely 
eaten away by a species of Caryoborus (one of the Bruchides), A specimen 
of the beetle was shown with nuts, from the London Docks, which had 
been recently imported from Guyaquil. 
The Secretary read a letter he had received from the Foreign Office 
Department, enclosing a despatch from Her M ajesty’s Minister at Madrid 
relative to the steps taken to check the ravages of the locust in Spain. It 
appeared that considerable apprehension had been felt in many parts of 
Spain that the crops of various kinds would suffer greatly this year from the 
locust; and the Cortes had already voted a large sum to enable the Govern- 
ment to take measures to prevent this calamity, and by a circular addressed 
to the Provincial Governors by the Minister of ‘Fomento,’ published in 
the Official Gazette, they were directed to make use of the military forces 
stationed within their respective districts, to aid the rural population in this 
object. It was stated that thirteen provinces were threatened with this 
plague.—F. G. 
Hooks Received, 
Explorations of the Colorado River of the West and its Tributaries in 1869, 
1870, 1871 and 1872, under the Direction of the Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution. Washington. 1875. 
The work contains 285 pages and 80 wliole-page illustrations, principally 
representing scenery, in the Far West of North America, of a very striking 
character: some represent Indians as in life, or as we occasionally see them 
in photographs: ‘these have no resemblance to the Red Indian as fiction 
and—I regret to add—as philanthropy would paint him. 
A History of British Birds, by the late William Yarrell, V-P18., FAS. 
Fourth Edition, revised by Alfred Newton, F.R.S., &e. Part IX, 
This work still progresses very slowly. Part IX. contains the buntings, 
the three European species lately identified by Mr. Gould as inhabitants, or 
