Ivii 



defence which have been elaborated by plants, and also the 

 influence exercised by plants on insects," was read by Sir John 

 Lubbock, before the Society of Arts, on February 23rd, 1877, in 

 continuation of his little work on the same subject, and is pub- 

 lished in the ' Journal' of that Society (vol. xxv., p. 281). In this 

 memoir the author has entered into the curious questions as to 

 the colours and markings of the larvfe of the elephant hawk-moth 

 {Chceroeampa elpenor), raised by Dr. Weissmann ; and also on the 

 curious connection between the larvje of Sitaris and honey, as 

 investigated by M. Fabre. 



The question of the selection of particular species of flowers by 

 individual specimens of bees or other insects, having for its 

 object, not supplying the wants of the insect, but the fertilisation 

 of the plant, has formed the subject of several communications to 

 'Nature' (vol. xvii. pp. 102, 163); an anonymous writer main- 

 taining that when pollen-grains of different colours and of 

 different species of plants are found on the thighs of an Andrena, 

 the plants visited by the insect must have been those the 

 admixture of whose pollen would induce cross-fertilisation. 



In an article on honey-dew, by Dr. Hoffman, of Giessen, it is 

 asserted that that secretion is not produced by Aphides or other 

 insects, but is purely vegetable in its origin (' Nature,' Feb. 8th, 

 1877). 



Geographical Distribution. 

 During the past year we have been made acquainted with the 

 establishment of another Academy of Natural Sciences in the 

 United States, at Davenport; and in the first volume of the 

 Proceedings of which Academy are published a series of papers 

 on North American insects, namely : — 



1. Notes on the maple-bark louse [or scale], Leccmium acericola 

 of Walsh and Rile}', a scale insect which has been found very 

 injurious to the maple trees in Davenport, Iowa. 



2. List of Coleoptera found in the vicinity of Davenport. 



3. List of Lepidoptera collected in the vicinity of Davenport. 



4. List of Coleoptera collected on the Rocky Mountains of 

 Colorado. 



5. List of Tiepidoptera collected in Colorado, with dates and 

 localities. 



H. Report on the insects collected by Capt. Jones' expedition 



