1872.] 279 
task, should publish the manuscripts he has left behind him: this desire, we are 
sure, will be felt by English Hemipterists, who have so largely benefited by Dr. 
Fieber’s opinions and assistance. 
Entomotocican Society or Lonpon, 19th February, 1872. — Prof. J. O. 
Westwoop, M.A., F.L.S, President, in the Chair. 
The following gentlemen were elected Subscribers to the Society :—Dr. 
Ransom, F.R.S., of Nottingham; H. W. Livett, Esq,, M.D., of Wells; J. H. A. 
Jenner, Esq., of Lewes; and G. B. Rothera, Esq., of Nottingham. 
Mr. F. Smith called attention to the fact that mice are in the habit of devour- 
ing the dead pupze of Bombyw mori contained in what is known as ‘silk-waste.’ 
Among a parcel of this ‘waste,’ he had found a double cocoon containing two 
pupz, and evidently constructed by two larvee working in concert. Mr. Weir 
called attention to similar cocoons of Eriogaster lanestris. 
Mr. Butler exhibited dried specimens, and drawings, of an enormous parasitic 
larva, apparently pertaining to some species of Ichnewmonide, that had emerged 
from larvee of Pygera bucephala, which they nearly equalled in size: he had failed 
to rear the perfect insect. 
Dr. Buchanan White communicated extracts from his note book relating to the 
habits of ants as observed by him at Capri, in June, 1866, and bearing upon Mr. 
Moggridge’s statement as to the storing of grain by ants at Mentone (see Proceed- 
ings for 1st January). Dr. White saw the ants cutting a long pathway through the 
grass, and conveying into their nest various seeds and pods. Mr. Horne stated 
that he had noticed a precisely similar habit in some of the ants of the plains of 
India, from the nests of which he was sometimes able to collect several handsfull 
of seeds. 
Prof. Westwood exhibited type specimens and magnified drawings of the 
creatures upon which Latreille had founded his Crustaceons genus Prosopistoma, 
and again referred to the opinion of Dr. Joly, that these animals, and ‘le Binocle”’ 
of Geoffroy, are immature conditions of Ephemeride. The absence of mouth-organs, 
and several points of structure, did not accord with the relationship assigned to 
them by Dr. Joly; at the same time, the legs were totally unlike those of any Crus- 
tacea known to him. In external form they bore some resemblance to the pupa of 
Betisca obesa, one of the Ephemeride, as figured by Walsh. 
Mr. McLachlan was of opinion that the structure of Prosopistoma was opposed 
to the idea of its pertaining to the Ephemeride. He exhibited specimens of the 
recently described Boreus californicus, Packard, from California. 
Mr. Miller read a note from Mr, P. Cameron, Jun., of Glasgow, in which the 
latter asserted that gall-making saw-flies avoid those parts of willow trees that 
overhang water, as inimical to the descent of the larve for the purposes of pupation 
in the earth. A similar fact had been recorded by Osten-Sacken with regard to the 
American plum-weevil. Mr. Miller suggested that this habit in insects might be 
turned to practical account as a means of preserving choice fruit trees from their 
attacks, and suggested the use of glass, it being well known that water-beetles often 
mistook glass for water. Prof. Westwood said he had known the glass in a frame 
to be broken by a Dytiscus flying against it. 
