91 



trees (the former at an earlier period of the year), is quite borne out by my own obser- 

 vation this summer. The second brood having now just made their appearance, 

 i will detail a mode by which their ravages may be greatly lessened. 



" The eggs — white, elliptical — are laid on the under surface, along the ribs of the 

 leaf, to the number sometimes of 120 on a single leaf j the larvaa, when hatched, 

 during the first twenty-four hours, make each one a little round hole. The leaf then 

 presents the appearance of having been riddled by No, 7 shot. The second day the 

 holes are larger, less regular, and soon coalescing ; the larger veins only at the tip of 

 the leaf remain undemolished. This is the critical time to destroy the brood. By 

 gathering these leaves daily as the caterpillars are hatched (for they keep coming out 

 during a fortnight or three weeks, according to the period at which the eggs were laid) 

 the whole of the brood will be easily destroyed. The peculiar appearance of the leaf 

 renders the gathering of the brood remarkably easy ; while the fact that at this early 

 period they are all together on one leaf, and that a week later they will be more scat- 

 tered over the tree, as also that their destruction of the foliage is then at the mini- 

 mum, peculiarly points out this period as the one most suitable to their destruction. 

 I should say that on the 19th of July, from about ten trees in my own garden, I 

 picked oflF fifty to seventy leaves, each containing from five to seventy eggs, and young 

 larvae just hatched. Since then I have daily picked off about ten leaves similarly 

 attacked. If each possessor of a garden would thus destroy the young brood, we 

 should have no more sawflies next year to trouble us. Other methods are advan- 

 tageously used at a later period for their destruction ; such are hand-picking, shaking 

 the stems, when the larvge drop down and can be killed ; syringing the under surface 

 of the leaves with alum and water, or watering the larvae when shaken down with the 

 same mixture: but all these methods are put in force when the damage is half done 

 and when the larvae are widely distributed over the trees, and are insignificant when 

 compared with that which I now advocate for nipping the evil in the bud. Let us 

 now look to our currant trees and next spring to our gooseberry trees, and we shall 

 get rid of the enemy." 



Paper read. 



The President read a paper entitled " A List of the Genera and Species belonging 

 to the Family Cryptocerids, with Descriptions of New Species ; also a List of the Spe- 

 cies of the Genus Echinopla." 



September 1, 1862. 



John Lubbock, Esq., V.P., in the chair. 



Donations. 

 The following donations were announced, and thanks ordered to be given to the 

 respective donors : — ' The Zoologist ' for September; presented by the Editor. ' The 

 London Review' for August; by the Editor. 'Journal of the Society of Arts' for 

 August; by the Society. ' Sitzungsberichte der Konigl. bayer. Akad. der Wissen- 

 schaften zu Miinchen,' 1862, Part 1 ; by the Academy. ' Reise nach Mossarabique,' 

 von Dr. Peters (5ter Band, Insekten und Myriapoden) ; by J. W. Dunning. 



