THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 13 



ceplion, all had deposited their eggs, which rendered their 

 pugnacity still more remarkable. A subsequent visit to the 

 same locality yielded five more specimens of the beetle. It 

 was remarkable that this made the fourth species of Meloe 

 found in the nest of the same kind of bee. 



Galls of the Maple. — Mr. Albert Miiller exhibited a large 

 number of galls on various plants, and called particular atten- 

 tion to two kinds of excrescence on the leaf-stalk of the maple 

 (Acej' campestrc), described in the following note: — " 1. A 

 Dipterous gall formed by a slender, club-like, reddish swelling 

 of the petiole, sometimes in its middle, sometimes at its junc- 

 tion with the leaf: it had a single cell occupying the whole 

 length of the gall, and was tenanted by the white larva of a 

 Dipteron as yet unknown to me, but which I am certain is 

 not a Cecidomyia. In September, 1868, and again in the 

 same month this year, I met with this gall on the identical 

 maple-bush in a hedge-row near Shirley, but until now all my 

 attempts at rearing the fly have utterly failed. 2. Also on the 

 petiole of the maple-leaf, a series of spur-like excrescences, 

 standing in a row, each about half a line high. These I am 

 inclined to attribute to the same Acarus Aceris of Kaltenbach 

 which causes the well-known pear-shaped red galls on the 

 leaves of this tree. But whether this be so or not, it is at any 

 rate worth while to point out that insect agency can produce, 

 on thornless plants, excrescences closely resembling, or per- 

 haps identical with, the natural thorns so commonly met with 

 in other groups of ihe vegetable kingdom." [Mr. Mliller's 

 suggestion that a gall on one plant can be identical with the 

 natural thorn of another plant, leads to the inference that he 

 suspects all thorns inay be galls : surely this will not be con- 

 tended ? — E. Newman.] 



Nov. 15, 1869.— H. W. Bates, Esq., President, in the chair. 



English Lociisis. — Mr. F. Smith, on behalf of Mr. Edwin 

 Brown, exhibited a locust, several specimens of which had 

 been quite recently captured at Burton-on-Trent : it appeared 

 to be identical with a species of which the British Museum 

 possesses five examples irom North Bengal. The specimen 

 exhibited was found in the yard of a brewery ; and Mr. 

 M'Lachlan suggested that it had probably been introduced in 

 an empty returned ale-cask, fl believe the insect in question 



