Entomological Society. 3719 



above the bird; we secured, measured and bottled him. Its dimensions were 6 inches 

 across the legs, and it was armed with a formidable pair of mandibles." 



Mr. Douglas read the following extract from the ' Literary Gazette ' : — 



" M. Bazin, an eminent French agriculturist, has made observations in Picardy 

 and Burgundy, which satisfy him that the potato-disease is caused by microscopic in- 

 sects, which alight on the leaves in the night-time, and disappear almost instantane- 

 ously on the slightest alarm, into the earth. The depredations of these insects cover 

 the leaves with yellow spots, which turn black afterwards ; and the insects also attack 

 the root. It has generally been assumed that the malady consisted in a fungus grow- 

 ing on the plants : but M. Bazin is convinced that the fungus is exclusively caused by 

 the insects. These same insects, it appears, have begun to attack melons.'' 



The following remarks on the " fly-blight " in Australia, by Mr. Spence, were 

 read : — 



"In a review in the September number of ' Blackwood's Magazine' (p. 309), of 

 Col. Moody's 'Our Antipodes,' containing an account of his travels in Australia, men- 

 tion is made of a disease in the human eye, called the ' fly-blight,' attended with acute 

 inflammation and temporary loss of sight, and caused by some species of fly. These 

 insects, Col. Moody observes, ' are the common fly, harmless in Europe. The blight 

 is occasioned either by their bite, or the deposition of their larvae, and is most disas- 

 trous to working men.' And he then goes on to observe, ' Mr. Icely's [a gentleman 

 he was visiting] daughters invented the " Fitzroy-Paramouche," a net to hang from 

 the hat over the face, and although the meshes were large not to obstruct the air, the 

 flies ventured not within.' 



" To two points in this extract I beg to call the attention of the Entomological 

 Society. 



" The first is, as to the desirableness of ascertaining what is the species of fly which 

 causes the ' fly-blight.' Col. Moody is no doubt in error in supposing it to be the 

 'common fly,' if by this term he means our house-fly, (Musca domestica); and a great 

 service would be rendered to the science, if any members of the Society who may have 

 friends in those parts of Australia where the fly-blight prevails, would request them to 

 send three or four specimens of the fly that causes the disease, which might be done 

 with small trouble, by killing them by means of slight pressure, and gumming them 

 on a piece of paper inclosed in a letter. 



" The second point is as to the remarkabe confirmation which the ingenious and 

 valuable invention by the Misses Icely of the ' Fitzroy-Paramouche' affords of the 

 efficacy of the Italian plan of excluding flies from rooms by nets with wide meshes, 

 which I brought to the notice of our Society eighteen years ago (Trans. Ent. Soc. i. 1), 

 and which the late lamented Bishop of Norwich found so effectual (Id. ii. 55), when 

 extended to protecting the face from them, merely by suspending a net from the hat; 

 and also as to the probability which thence arises, that a similar contrivance might 

 keep off gnats (Culices) from the faces of travellers in districts much exposed to them. 

 This struck me long since, after my son, Mr. W. B. Spence, had pointed out (Trans. 

 Ent. Soc. i. 7), that Herodotus had noticed the use made, upwards of two thousand 

 years ago, by the Egyptian fishermen of their fishing-nets, to screen themselves from 



