25 



JANUARY 21st, 1886. 



R. ADKIN, Esq., F.E.S,, President, in the Chair. 



Mr. F. W. Frohawk exhibited specimens of the curious 

 ichneumon Allysia manducator, Panz., bred from the coleop- 

 teron, Creophilus maxillosus, L. 



Mr. T. R. Billups exhibited male and female specimens 

 of Sirex gigas, L., and read the following notes : — 



" The species exhibited belongs to the family of Siricidae 

 (Tailed Wood Wasps), the larvae of which are very destructive 

 to timber, more especially fir-trees. The female lays her eggs in 

 living wood, and the larvae live for many years in the interior. 

 They are not only very destructive to plantations, which 

 have been destroyed by the borings of these insects, but they 

 have been known to be a terror to whole households. Kirby 

 and Spence, in one of their letters upon indirect injuries caused 

 by insects, give an instance of this, in which several specimens 

 of S. gigas, were seen to come out of the floor of a nursery in 

 a gentleman's house, to the great discomfiture both of nurse 

 and children. Another instance, upon the authority of Mr. 

 Ingpen, is also worth mentioning, and occurred in the. house 

 of a gentleman at Henlow, Bedfordshire, from the joists of 

 the floor of which, swarms, literally thousands of Sirex, 

 emerged from innumerable holes large enough to admit a 

 small pencil-case, causing great terror to the occupants. 

 Numerous other references might be made to the destruction 

 caused not only to woods and plantations, but to houses after 

 they have been built some three or four years. But I cannot 

 help quoting another instance, showing how powerful the 

 mandibles of the larvae are ; lead itself not being impervious 

 to its attacks. Marshall Vaillant presented to the Acad^mie 

 des Sciences in 1857, some packets of cartridges containing 

 balls which had been pierced through by the larvae of the 

 Sirex, during the sojourn of the French troops in the Crimea : 

 some of these insects were still shut up in the galleries which 

 they had hollowed out in the metal. Then M. le Marquis de 



