1260 The Zoologist— June, 1868. 



Mr. M'Lachlan mentioned that the Anax mediterraneus of de Selys Longchamps, 



• which had on a solitary occasion been captured in the Island of Sardinia, but had been 



rejected from the list of European dragon-flies, was observed in swarms at Turin and 



in other parts of Italy by Dr. Ghiliani and others, on numerous occasions, from July to 



September, 1867. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited a larva which he believed to be a Xantholinus, found 

 by Mr. O. Janson whilst digging in a sand-bank at Snaresbrook : attached by their 

 hinder extremities to the under side of this larva, on the 5th, 7th, 9th and 11th 

 segments respectively, were four pupa? of a Hymenopterous parasite, probably a 

 Proctotrupes. 



Mr. F. Smith also exhibited a Longicorn beetle, Cerosterna gladiator, and a large 

 Acheta, which were very destructive to forest-trees in Madras. 



Dr. Cieghorn, Conservator of Forests, Madias (who was present as a visitor), said 

 that these insects had done great damage in the young Casuarina plantations along 

 the Madras Railway. The attacks of the beetle were principally directed to the bark 

 of the trees; but the cricket generally bit off ihe leading shoots or primary branches. 

 It appeared suddenly in September, 1867,afler some showers of rain at the end of the 

 hot season : during the night the larvae emerged from the sand, crawled up the young 

 trees, and nibbled off the leading shoots (as a rabbit might have done), many of which, 

 six inches long, were found lying on the ground ; hundreds of trees had to be replaced 

 on the railway-banks in consequence of their depredations. The best way to save the 

 trees was to employ hoys to dig out the lanae from the tortuous galleries or passages 

 which they made in the sand to a depth of ten to fifteen inches, and large enough 

 to admit the little finger: he had had bushels of them dug out of their burrows 

 and destroyed. In reply to inquiries, Dr. Cieghorn stated that he had himself 

 frequently seen the larvae crawling up the steins, and was convinced that they 

 were the auihors of the injury, bui he had never seen them in the act of culling off 

 the shoots. 



Mr. Trimen mentioned, as a parallel case, a tree-cricket at the Cape which eats 

 the terminal shoots of the silver-tree (Leueodendroa argentcum), by which, however, the 

 shoots are not wantonly bitten off, hut are consumed for food. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited eight kinds of larva; from India, all of which were 

 described as ''borers," and as causing great damage, to the toffee and other trees. 

 Three of them appeared to be Lepidopterbus ; one, the " red borer" of Ceylon, which 

 attacks a tree in the middle of the stem and works its way upwards through the pith, 

 belonged to a species of Zenzera ; a second, which was a Boinewbal similar larva, was 

 found in the pith of the charcoal tree (Spnnia Wiyhtii) ; the third, the "great while 

 borer," also looked like a Zenzera, and was usually found at the root of coffee and 

 other trees. The remaining five larvae weie Coleopterous; one was probably a 

 Pyrochroa, and was^fouud in the coffee Iree ; another, a Bupreslis, found in the root 

 of a dead coffee tree; a third, an Oryctes, found in a dead forest tree in a coffee 

 plantation ; a fourth was a Longicorn ; and the filth was the " white borer," or "coffee 

 bo er" par excellence, Xylotrechus quadripes of Chevrolat. Of this insect numerous 

 specimens in all its stages were exhibited, together with the stem of a coffee tree 

 attacked by the larvae. 



With respect to the last-mentioned insect, Mr. F. Smith drew attention to a 

 pamphlet (Madras, 1867) entitled 'Preliminary Remarks on the Ravages of the 



