1102 The Zoologist— February, 1868. 



Referring to Trans. Ent. Soc, third series, Vol. v. p. 330, Mr. Caldwell wrote as 

 follows : — 



" Mr. Trimen considers it probable that, in the collection examined by Mr. Bates, 

 I may have mixed up the Malagasy insects with the Mauritian. This did take place 

 after I had packed those for England ; but I may almost venture lo state positively 

 (hat those I sent home were all taken from the original Malagasy collection before 

 any mixture was possible." 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited two specimens of a Polistes captured .at Penzmce by a lady 

 residing in that town; one specimen was caught in the summer of 1866 on the wiudow- 

 sill of a house, and three more were taken at the end of July or beginning of August, 

 1867, in the very same situation in the window of the same house. The insect did not 

 agree exactly with any described species of Polistes, but appeared lo be intermediate 

 between the North-American P. biguttatus and the Brazilian P. versicolor. The 

 captor suggested that they had probably been introduced in wood from a dock-yard 

 situate about a hundred yards from her house ; but Mr. Smith could scarcely believe 

 that they were imported : the species of Polistes were not wood-boring wasps, but 

 paper-makers, and their slight nests were attached lo the outside of a tree, post, wall, 

 &c. ; un trimmed wood was not imported from America. (See the 'Entomologist's 

 Annual' for 1868, pp. 87, 96). 



Mr. Bates also had difficulty in believing that an insect with the habits of Polistes 

 could have been imported ; the nests were mere strings of cells hanging by a peduncle 

 from ihe rafter of a house, a shrub, the trunk or branch of a tree; they were of loose 

 construction, incapable of withstanding' exposure. Such a nest could hardly be 

 transported in safety, either with timber on board ship or washed across by the gulf- 

 stream. Such was the rapidity of life in Brazil, and so quick the succession of broods, 

 that the eggs would not remain unhatched during the voyage, and if hatched the 

 young larva; must perish. Nor did he think it likely that perfect wasps would be 

 brought over alive ; at any rate the specimens would be worn, and very different from 

 those exhibited. 



Mr. M'Lachlan exhibited a Trichopterous insect new to Britain, Neuronia 

 clathrata of Kolenati, captured at Bishop's Wood, Staffordshire, by Mr. Chappell, of 

 Manchester. 



The Secretary exhibited a small box of South-American Coleoptcra, sent to the 

 Society by Mr. F. Schickendautz, of Pilciao, who found them on the flowers of a new 

 species of Hydnora. 



The Secretary "exhibited specimens of the coffee-tree attacked by the " borer," and 

 of the larva, pupa and, imago of the insect, which had done great damage in the 

 coffee-plantations of Southern India. These were sent by the Rev. G. Richter, 

 Principal of the Government Central School, Mercara, Coorg. The insect proved to 

 be a species of Clytus. 



The Secretary made the following observations on the nomenclature of Australian 

 Buprestids adopted by Mr. Edward Saunders in a paper read at the meeting of the 

 4th of November, 1867 (S. S. 1022):— 



"The rejection by Mr. Edward Saunders, in his 'Revision of the Australian 

 Bupreslida; described by the Rev. F. W. Hope,' of certain published names, in favour 

 of the names given by Mr. Hope in the so-called ' Synopsis of Australian Buprestida?,' 

 raises a question of some importance as regards priority of nomenclature. I have 



