THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 217 



ill shape, grayish in colour, thickly dotted with purple ; 

 they hatched in about sixteen days, and the larvae, when 

 three or four days old, were very minute, and in colour 

 uniformly white, but with a rather transparent appearance 

 when seen through a lens. On the 24th of June, when 

 a length of about an inch had been attained, I took the 

 following description : — Of average thickness, and nearly 

 uniformly cylindrical, with the segmental divisions con- 

 spicuous ; head smooth and globular, quite as broad as the 

 second segment ; skin soft, and rather pulpy to the touch ; 

 the usual dots small, but distinct : general colour pale green, 

 and the appearance of being powdered with whitish; head 

 also pale green, variegated with whitish ; a clear broad white 

 stripe forms the medio-dorsal line ; subdorsal lines also white 

 but narrower, spiracular lines yellow and narrow ; there is 

 also a faint white dotted line on each side between the sub- 

 dorsal and spiracular lines ; spiracles indistinct, white 

 encircled with black ; legs green, tipped with shining 

 black ; belly and prolegs of an uniform dull green. Feeds on 

 oak and lime; but from the gradual and mysterious disap- 

 pearance of most of my larvae, I suspect that, when the 

 opportunity presents itself, one of its own living brethren is 

 too tempting a morsel to be withstood. — Geo. T. Porritt ; 

 Hudderfijield, November 10, 1870. 



Tlie Tsetse Jly. — The meeting of members of the Natural 

 History Association of Natal, held last evening, 30th May, 

 1870, was most successful. There was a large audience. 

 Mr. John Robinson presided. Mr. St. Vincent Erskine's 

 paper on the tsetse fly was very interesting, and combatted 

 the popular idea that the bite of the tsetse fly was destructive 

 to the life of certain animals, especially the ox, horse, and 

 dog. Dr. Livingstone's statements on this point were 

 severely criticised by Mr. Erskine, whose theory was that 

 the deaths of the animals were to be attributed more to 

 change of grass or climate than to the bite of such a small 

 fly as the tsetse. Referring to Dr. Livingstone's assertion 

 that the natives of the Matabele country held the belief that 

 the tsetse fly destroyed their cattle, he said that natives 

 of the west of Africa, in whose country the fly was to be 

 found, and who could not keep cattle, did not attribute the 

 destruction of their cattle to the fly. Mr. Morant's paper, on 



