20 



Mr. Stevens also exhibited the very rare species of CurculionidEe, Trachodes his- 

 pidus : this single specimen having been taken by Mr. Plant, of Leicester, by sweep- 

 ing under oaks in a wood near that place. 



Mr. Boddy exhibited a living specimen of the rare Ludius ferrugineus, of which 

 the larva was found in a rotten ash tree near London, on the 3rd of September, 1853, 

 and the beetle appeared on the 9lh of July last. He also exhibited a living larva of 

 the same species, respecting which Mr. Westwood observed the last segment of the 

 body had not the least denticulation, thus affording a good character for generic dis- 

 tinction. 



Mr. Douglas exhibited a series of specimens of Grapholita nisella,Z?'OTi., bred from 

 catkins of sallow and poplar, including all the varieties Pavonana, Boeberana, cuspi- 

 dana, rhombifasciana and cinerana, which had been placed together by Mr. H. Dou- 

 bleday, and might now be deemed without doubt to be but one species. 



Notes on Irish Sphcerice. 



Mr. A. R. Hogan, of Dublin, sent the following communication respecting two ex- 

 amples of a Sphaeria, accompanied by the specimens referred to. 



" The Lepidopterous larva bearing the Sphaerise now laid before the Society was 

 taken by me on the 10th of March, 1853, while digging for pupce at the roots of au 

 oak tree in Mount Merrion, a demesne belonging to the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, 

 and not far distant from the place where I live. The Sphaerite were at the time quite 

 young, the tallest not being more than a quarter of an inch in height; and the species 

 appeared In be the same as that on a former occasion (5th July, 1852), exhibited at a 

 meeting of the Entomological Society, with no apparent difference but that of the 

 shoots being somewhat stronger and thicker. The following entry appears in my note- 

 book, made on the i2th of April : — ' On examining the larva taken last month, which 

 by Professor Harvey's advice has been kept moist in a jam-pot filled with clay and 

 moss, and covered with a piece of glass, I found fully a dozen fresh sprouts on it, pure 

 white, and one of them about the height of a line, shaped like the point of a dagger. 

 From that time the Sphaeriae continued to grow, some more and some less rapidly, for 

 several months, always retaining the white point at the end of each stem, generally 

 covered with small drops of moisture, till at length the cold of winter seemed to deaden, 

 though it did not destroy, their vitality. Meantime none of the shoots showed any 

 sign of fructification, without which Professor Harvey said that it would be impossible 

 to identify the species. In autumn I tried the experiment of placing a dead larva of 

 PygaMa Biicephala and one or two other species in the same pot where the Sphasrife 

 were growing, in order to see whether any of the seed might be communicated to 

 these larvae from the moss (as in the first instance I met with evidently was the case), 

 but without the desired effect. 



'• As early sjiring opened the Spha;riffi again threw out fresh shoots, some of the 

 latter forming Iminchcs from the old ones whose extremities had withered away : this 

 will be seen by an examination of the specimen, and it will also be remarked that there 

 is a great diversity in the relative size of the shoots, one or two of thein being so fine 

 and delicate as hardly to be perceptible at first sight. At this stage of their growth, 

 however, the space in which they were confined being manifestly too small, and seem- 

 ing to cramp their existence, I could not resist the temptation (though from the great 



