90 



" Size and general appearance of the insect that of a worker. Head male ; the 

 eyes large, and meeting on the vertex ; both the antennse female, 12-jointed. Man- 

 dibles worker, not toothed at the apex as in both male and female. Wing on the 

 right side, male ; that on the left, worker. Legs male, or rather, partly male on the 

 right side ; the anterior and intermediate legs perfect male ; the posterior leg male, 

 but fringed with hair, and the basal joint of the tarsus male exteriorly, that is, 

 smooth and convex, but within transversely ridged and clothed with hair ; the fol- 

 lowing joints male; the left posterior leg is perfect worker. The abdomen furnished 

 with a sting ; the sting female, straight." 



Prof. Westwood said that during June last he had noticed a couple of hive-bees 

 near the mouth of the hive, apparently fighting ; and on capturing them he found 

 that one, which seemed to have been attacked by the other, had attached to its head 

 a tuft of filamentous matter, which turned out to be composed of the pollen-matter of 

 Orchis maculata. The Professor was desirous of sending the specimen to Mr. Darwin, 

 as bearing on the subject treated in the most recent of that gentleman's works, but 

 unfortunately it had been placed in spirit, by which the tuft of pollen-matter had been 

 • dissolved. 



The Secretary read, on behalf of Dr. Alexander Wallace, the following 



Note on the Ravages of the (Currant) Sawjly. 



" In the ' Zoologist' for July, 1862 (Zool. 8079), an interesting account is given 

 of the sawfly, Nematus ventricosus. King, translated from the Dutch of M. Snellen 

 van Vollenhoven, by J. W. May, Esq. This insect is familiarly known by the name 

 of the ' gooseberry grub,' whose ravages this year, extending all over the kingdom, 

 have deprived us of many tons of fruit. By studying the natural history of this and 

 other insects, we shall doubtless find a clue to the prevention of their ravages, and I 

 wish now to throw out some hints which may prove useful for that purpose. After 

 giving a description of the larvae, &c., our author goes on to state, ' They feed both 

 day and night, and, beginning in company on a leaf, they eat on until there is 

 nothing left but the stalk and some of the thickest veins. Before quitting the bush 

 they moult, once more assuming a pale yellowish green colour, the first and terminal 

 segments being orange ; but they are now without the black spots and hairs which 

 they had in their earlier state. After this they drop from the tree, and construct a 

 cocoon at the foot : this cocoon is made at no great depth in the ground, and is exter- 

 nally covered with little grains of earth. They assume the pupa state, in the sum- 

 mer, in the space of three weeks, in the winter only after an interval of eight months. 

 The pupae are yellowish white, and display all the parts of the imago. They very 

 soon change their colour, and in eight or ten days, having moulted for the last time, 

 the perfect insect gnaws open the cocoon and escapes.' Our author then gives a 

 description of the perfect insect, and further adds, ' There was an incredible number 

 of these larvae in 1860. From observations made at Utrecht and at Leyden, there 

 seems no doubt that the first brood in May attacked exclusively the leaves of the 

 gooseberry, some of the bushes being quite stripped ; and that the second generation, 

 appearing in July, principally confined itself to the currant, but small numbers having 

 been seen on the gooseberry. I observed this myself in a garden where the two plants 

 were growing intermixed. Both larvae and images were decidedly of but one species.' 

 The truth of this latter observation, that the larvae attack both gooseberry and currant 



