The Zoologist— August, 1868. 1339 



being liable to perish from the violence of the monsoon, drought, borer, &c. The 

 roost of the estates therefore are under shade, and as those so protected have suffered 

 but little from the borer as compared with the few in the open, I went over them with 

 great interest. The degree of shade is a point of great nicety and importance, too 

 much being prejudicial to the reproductive powers of the tree, and too little exposing 

 it to the effects of drought and the attacks of the borer. The native cultivators were 

 the first to adopt this system, and there seems no doubt that they were led to do so by 

 experience. It is worthy of note, too, that the first English coffee planters in Southern 

 India followed their example, and that some of their estates, varying in age from 

 twenty-five to forty years, still yield large and certain returns to the owners. On the 

 whole, I entertain a very high opinion of the system of culture under shade, and think 

 it might be introduced with advantage in many parts of Coorg." 



Mr. M'Lachlan mentioned that the terrestrial Trichopterous larvae exhibited at the 

 previous Meeting (Zool. S. S. 1303), from which he had hoped to breed Encecyla 

 pusilla, had unfortunately perished. 



Mr. A. E. Eaton exhibited numerous drawings and microscopical preparations of 

 the mouth and other parts of Caenis, Leptophlebia, Ephemerella and Oligoneuria — 

 with reference to the paper mentioned below. 



Prof. Westwood exhibited two remarkable forms of Cbalcididae, one from the 

 Amazons, the other from Australia, both belonging to the Cleonymus group, and 

 possessing peculiar modifications and elongation of the abdominal segments, whereby 

 doubtless oviposition was facilitated. He proposed to describe each of them as the type 

 of a new genus. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited two female specimens of Ophion macrurus (Drury, Exot. 

 Ins. i. pi. xliii. fig. 5), bred by Mr. Chapman, of Glasgow, from cocoons of Saturnia 

 Cynthia, which he had received from Mr. Angus, of New York. The specimens were 

 alive when they reached Mr. Smith, and one of them stung him in the hand so severely 

 as to lead to the belief that poison was injected, but fortunately the pain was not lasting. 

 There were specimens of this Ichneumon in the British Museum from New York, 

 with a memorandum by Edward Doubleday " parasitic on BorabyxCecropia," a North 

 American species : if there were no mistake as to the species from which the exhibited 

 insects were bred, it was remarkable that the Asiatic Bombyx Cynthia should, so soon 

 after its introduction into America, have been attacked by the parasite of its congener 

 B. Cecropia. 



Mr. F. Moore did not consider that these parasites were restricted to a single 

 species. There was no doubt of the true Bombyx Cynthia having been introduced 

 into America; and he had himself bred the same species of Ophion from B. Cynthia 

 and B. Polyphemus. 



The Secretary exhibited a spring wooden letter-clip, in the cavity between the 

 limbs of which was placed the nest of a wasp, probably an Odynerus. This was found 

 in June, in Hants, in a box which lay open on a writing-table which was in constant 

 use, though the clip had remained untouched; and was communicated by Sir J. Clarke 

 Jervoise, Bart., M.P. 



The Secretary mentioned that petroleum oil, especially in the crude state, had in 

 France been found of great use in destroying insects : the petroleum was mixed with 

 water, in the proportion of an ounce to half an ounce to a pint of water, but when 



