Juno 30, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



477 



at the time being the 6ize of a good Apple. Four of them were 

 nibbled in two or three places, and the leaves and runners I 

 could take out of the frame by handluls, till one light was 

 literally cleared of the foliage altogether. I tried to trap them, 

 but could not catch, one, and to poison them, but they would 

 not eat the bread that I put the poison on. 



If any of the readers of your Journal could instruct me as to 

 the best way to get rid of these pests, I should receive the infor- 

 mation with thankfulness. — A Constant Header.. 



[The specimen sent is the snake millipede. We have seldom 

 found them so destructive. The centipede is more fond than the 

 millipede of getting into fruit and coiling itself up, as in Apples, 

 Peaches, &c. You can do little now with your Strawberries, 

 unless in the way of prevention. We have tried beanstalks 

 cut into six-inch lengths, and dipped in a weak solution of sugar 

 and water. They will at times lodge in these, and you must 

 dislodge them as you would do an earwig. A dressing of huie 

 and soot would help to keep them also from the Strawberries, as 

 they do not like travelling over such materials. The eggs are 

 deposited in holes in early summer, and are soon hatched with 

 the heat. Lime and sout are very disagreeable to them. This 

 is all we can say. Would some friends be kind enough to help 

 in this, and also the following cases ? 



The Cabbages are clubbed by quite a different animal — a small 

 weevil; and the chief cures for it are examining the plants 

 before planting, removing all the Binall clubs or knots, if any, 

 and killing the small grub weevil ; then dip the roots in a 

 thick paste mortar formed of soot, lime, and soil, three parts of 

 the latter to one of each of the former, before planting, and use 

 soot in the first watering afterwards. If a little soot and lime 

 are put on the ground alter the plants begin to grow all the better. 

 This weevil seems to shun all nitrogenous matter and ammonia. 

 It will also be good policy to change the Cabbage ground ev-ry 

 year. If so looked over at planting time, and the ground is 

 freshly and well dug, and well manured, and if Boot and lime 

 are used in watering, there will be little of the club in old or 

 young plantations. In places where the weevil has become very 

 numerous, it is a good plan to let the plants grow to a fair size, 

 and to well examine them before final planting. 



We can sympathise with you as to the grass mouse. He is 

 not easily trapped, and is also difficult to poison. We have 

 poisoned him by throwing with a brush, not with the hand, a 

 little arsenic into the pieces of Melon or Cucumber he had been 

 tasting. Generally, traps baited with bread, or poisoned « heat, 

 &c, are useless, he will not look at such hard materials ; but we 

 have caught him in figure-four traps, by placing some tempting 

 green delicacy below the overhanging heavy tile, and nibbling 

 about it brought it down. If he lodges in a hole of the bed, 

 he can also be brought out thence as a half-drowned mouse, by 

 pouring pailful after pailful of water in the hole, and, having 

 previously removed the glass from the frame, there is little diffi- 

 culty in pouncing upon him. The most certain way, however, is 

 to notice his runs, aud place in his route either small steel traps, 

 less than for rats, or hair traps, made of a stout hair, with a 

 running noose, exactly on the same principle as the poacher 

 adopts for rabbits, hares, and pheasants. We have used all these 

 means with fair success, when we have been troubled with such 

 visitors. It is useless, in general, to present such a mouse with 

 anything tempting, unless it be green. We once had a pit of 

 Calceolarias levelled with the ground. The frost was intense out- 

 side, and tbey had not been uncovered for three weeks. The 

 worst of it was,- the mouse had eaten but little, and he seemed 

 to have hit upon cutting over for diversion. Most of the roots 

 broke again though weak, and the cut tops made good cuttings, 

 if not too much nibbled.] 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY'S MEETLNG. 

 The June Meeting of the Entomological Society was rendered 

 a special one, the members having been especially summoned for 

 the purpose of taking into consideration the following report of 

 the Library and Cabinet's Committee, dated the 30th March 

 last : — " That the present income and the financial prospects of 

 the Society do not warrant this Committee in believing that the 

 Society is or will he able to provide the sums requisite for 

 forming a collection of British insects which shall be worthy of 

 the Society, and for maintaining the tame in a satisfactory state. 

 This Committee, therefore, recommends to the Council that the 

 Society's collection be discontinued, and that proper steps be 



taken for the disposal of the specimens and cabinets. The Com- 

 mittee, however, further recommends, that the type specimens 

 be not dispersed but placed in some public institution where 

 they will be readily accessible and available tor scientific pur- 

 poses, and the Committee suggests the feasibility of some arrange- 

 ment by which the specimens in question might be placed in the 

 British Mu»euin." 



At its tirst foundation the Society's chief objects were — 1, the 

 formation of an entomological collection ; 2, the formation of 

 an entomological library ; 3, the publication of the Society's 

 "Transactions." The valuable collection of the late Mr. Kirby 

 was presented entire to the Society by its venerable possessor, 

 and large udditions were made by the late Messrs. Children, 

 Hope, and many other members. It was, nevertheless, found 

 after the experience of many yeurs, that a small society like that 

 of the London Entomological Society was only encumbered by 

 the possession of a collection which required the attention of a 

 Curator, involving considerable expense, lu addition to which 

 it was found that the col ectiou did not keep pace with the pro- 

 gress of the science, whilst the expense it entailed on the Society 

 crippled the more serviceable objects of an entomological library, 

 ana especially the publication of the Society's "Transactions." 

 Several years ago, accordingly, it was proposed by some of the 

 members that the entire collection should be disposed of (as had 

 been done by the Entomological Society of France, and has since 

 been done by the Zoological Society ot London, and is also pro- 

 posed at the pre : ent time to be done by the Linnean Society), 

 but the proposition was only partially adopted by the sale of the 

 exotic portion of the collection. Circumstances have since, how- 

 ever, shown that it would be advisable to carry the proposition 

 fully out, especially as the original constitution of the Society 

 contemplated the study of exotic as well as British entomology, 

 and the objections against retaining any part of the collection 

 were equally strong against the British aa against the exotic 

 portion of the collection. Under these circumstances, and with 

 the examples ot so many other Societies before them, it is not 

 surprising that the proposition of the Library and Cabinet's 

 Committee was adopted by the Society at large, and we have 

 since hud the pleasure to learn that the type specimens, including, 

 of course, Mr. Kirby's collection of British Bees and other 

 insects, rendered valuable from having served as the type of the 

 descriptions published by other entomologists, have been trans- 

 ferred to the British Museum, where they will have a much surer 

 chauce of being preserved and made available lor the nse of 

 students than tbey would have had if tuey had remained in the 

 possession of the Entomological Society. 



At the general Meeting of the Society held on the same even- 

 ing, the President in the chair, Mr. Staiuton exhibited some 

 small Lepidopterous larva? which had been found mining in the 

 leaves ot the Hazel. The same larvse having been also found on 

 Kibes sanguineum and in Birch leaves. They were supposed 

 to be those of lncurvana pectinea. 



Mr. U-. R. Waterhouse exhibited specimens of an apparently 

 new British species of Homalota (a genus of minute Staphy- 

 linidse). 



Mr. F. Bond exhibited hermaphrodite specimens of the 

 Orange-tip aud Swallow-tail Butterflies; in both of which the 

 right side of the individual exhibited the female, and the left 

 side the male form, contrary to the usually observed state of 

 such specimens. 



The President also exhibited drawings of two hermaphrodite 

 specimens of the Honey Bee, the different parts of the body 

 exhibiting sexual differences of the male and worker Bees ; also, 

 specimens of Braula cceca, a small wingless parasite infesting 

 the hives of the Honey Bee, which had been imported into this 

 country with the Ligurian Honey Bee, in a hive of which variety 

 these parasites had been found. 



Mr. McLachlan read descriptions of three new British species 

 of Caddice Flies (Trichoptera), of which he exhibited specimens. 



Mr. Stainton read some notes on a curious Lepidopterous 

 insect, Tinea vivipara (Scott), described in the " Transactions of 

 the Entomological Society of New South Wales," as being vivi- 

 parous in its habits ; also, notes on the " Proceedings of the 

 Entomological Society of Philadelphia." 



The Secretary also read a letter from Mr. C. A. Wilson, of 

 Adelaide, giving an account of the entomological captures of 

 Mr. F. G. Waterhouse, the naturalist attached to the South 

 Australian Exploring Expedition under Stuart, which had 

 recently succeeded in crossing the Australian continent from 

 Adelaide to the north-west coast and back again. 



