4910 Entomological Society. 



Elateridce feeding on Aphides. 

 Mr. Douglas read, from the * Entomologische Zeitung,' the following note by 

 Pastor Kavall, of Courland : — 



" I am able to confirm the fact that the Elaters do not confine themselves to 

 vegetable juices, but attack Aphides. As long ago as June 7, 1847, I saw Elater 

 tesselatus eat Aphides upon Viburnum opulus, and I observed it closely with a lens. 

 I also noticed Elater Ephippium and E. elongatus on Prunus padus similarly 

 occupied. At other times I have seen Elateridae sucking (the juices of) plants." 



Coleoptera of Siam. 

 Mr. Edwin Shepherd read the following extract from a letter addressed to 

 Mr. Adam White by J. C. Bowling, Esq., Corr. M.E.S., at Hong Kong :— 



" You may perhaps have heard that I accompanied my father on his missiun to 

 Siam ; I did so for change of air, which I sadly wanted. I cannot say that I got the 

 rest aud quiet I needed, as we were fully occupied during the whole of our stay at 

 Bangkok, and there was scarcely a night that we were not at it until half-past one or 

 two o'clock : as the thermometer nearly every day was up to 92° or 94°, this was some- 

 what trying to a semi-invalid, and I am sorry to say I do not find any benefit to have 

 accrued from my trip. Having been so busy you may imagine that I had not much 

 time to bestow on our favourite Entomology ; I brought away with me, however, some 

 500 Coleoptera, taken principally in doors, the insects having been attracted by the 

 lamps: this number, considering all things, is very respectable; but, excepting a few 

 longicorns and Khynchophora, the species are of very minute size, the whole having 

 been brought away in a pill-box ; they are now being mounted, and cut a decent 

 figure. I scarcely yet know how many species there are amongst them, but certainly 

 over a hundred, and any duplicates I have shall go to the British Museum. Most of 

 the insects which came in to the lights were small BembidiidaB, Staphylinidae and 

 Pselaphidae : of these last I have some sixty specimens, comprising five or six species. 

 Bangkok, indeed, would seem to be the very metropolis of the Pselaphidae kingdom, 

 as every morning numbers were found drowned in the cocoa-nut oil in the burners, 

 and I could have got many hundreds of these greasy gentry. 



" The country seems to swarm with insects of all kinds, and any collector who 

 could spare a season for Siam would reap a glorious harvest. On our way from Siam 

 to Singapore we had to call at Pulo Aor to cut wood, having run out of fuel, and 

 while our men were at work in their way, I was so also in mine. It was such a 

 fatiguing matter to force a way through the jungle, the sides of the hill (the whole 

 island being a mountain rising precipitously from the sea) being so steep that I was 

 not very successful, and only obtained about forty Coleoptera, of one or two of which 

 I have duplicates, and these you shall have. 



" In Hong Kong Coleoptera I cannot be expected to progress very fast ; it is a 

 rare thing now for me to fall in with a novelty, but still I do so occasionally: the 

 other day I got my first specimen of the only beetle in poor Champion's collection, 

 which I did not possess when he left China, — an Orthogonius ; I don't know whether 

 it has been described. My Chinese Coleoptera now number some 1300 species. 



" I fear we shall not get many novelties from Japan, under our new arrangements 

 with that country; the place, I imagine, will be as much closed against us as ever, 



