Entomological Society. 4571 



Galls produced by Cynips Quercus-petioli. 



Mr. Stainton, adverting to the mention of this subject at the last meeting, read 

 the following extract of a letter received from R. C. R. Jordan, Esq., of Queen's 

 College, Birmingham : — 



" The galls are old friends of mine, I have known them for twenty years : of late 

 they have been more common. I have here some fine specimens of the Cynips, 

 or rather, in searching them out, I have four specimens : I have known the Cynips 

 for three years. About five years ago a medical man at Lympstone, near Exmouth, 

 used them always to make his ink, and tried to impress upon the country people the 

 use that might spring from making them an article, so to speak, of exportation. But 

 of course, as with all other things of this sort, they would gather the galls for him to 

 make the ink, when paid for it, but never made any attempt to sell them elsewhere. 

 They would be a good substitute for the nut-galls, and deserve to be used instead. 



" The Cynips appears in September, perforating the gall by a single round hole. 

 The galls themselves are first green, afterwards brown : the larvae may be occasionally 

 found in them in spring. I have never found any other than a Cynips larva in the 

 galls: in the common cherry -like gall on the under side of the oak leaves, there is a 

 larva of a saw-fly occasionally, and I have a notice of an ichneumon-parasite on the 

 Cynips." 



Mr. Stainton added that, since the last meeting, he had ascertained these galls were 

 more than usually abundant this year in Devonshire. 



Mr. Curtis hoped that Mr. Stainton would procure some of these galls, for he still 

 doubted if those seen by Mr. Stainton and Mr. Jordan were identical with those he 

 had referred to Cynips Quercus-petioli. 



Mr. Westwood said he had announced the discovery of this species in England, in 

 the ' Gardener's Chronicle,' some time since. 



Larva of Ctenicerus murinus. 



Mr. Curtis read a letter from the Rev. C. A. Kuper Trellich, Monmouthshire, 

 stating that he had found, under a loose stone, a larva of a reddish colour, which he 

 believed to be that of Ctenicerus murinus. The locality was the top of a wall in an 

 elevated bleak situation, whereon stems of gorse had been laid and had decayed, in 

 which stems, he presumes, the larvae feed, for he had often found the perfect insects 

 thereon while immature. 



Locality of Papilio Antenor, Drury. 



Mr. Westwood stated that this butterfly was long known only by the figure of 

 Drury, until Mr. Hope received a specimen, taken, as he stated, by Ritchie, at 

 Soudan, in Central Africa, which, however, was doubted by Mr. Edward Doubleday, 

 who considered the species to be an Asiatic form. He had now to announce that the 

 British Museum had just received a specimen from Madagascar. Was it possible the 

 species could have so wide a geographical range, or had there been some error in the 

 former instance ? 



Mr. Westwood also took this opportunity to state, as bearing upon this subject, 

 that a beetle, Pachylomerus femoratus, stood in Mr. Hope's collection as African ; 



