4004 Entomological Society. 



" Trusting to your good offices, I pray you to believe me, 



" Sir, 

 " Your very obedient Servant, 

 " Geo. Lovell, 



" H. M. Inspector of Small Arms." 

 " J. O. Westwood, Esq." 



Mr. Westwood exhibited the beetle referred to — Latridius lardarius, and said that 

 the habits attributed to it did not agree with its economy, for it was well known to 

 feed upon dried animal matter and provisions, and never upon wood ; so that he 

 thought it was not the real depredator, and he now awaited a reply to a communica- 

 tion to this effect which he had made to Mr. Lovell. 



Mr. Douglas read the following note : — 



" In the ' Entomologische Zeitung ' for May, is a note by Dr. H. Hagen, upon a 

 work published in London in 1773, intituled 'A Decade of Curious Insects: some of 

 them not described before, shewn in their natural size, and as they appear enlarg'd 

 before the Lucernal Microscope, in which the Solar Apparatus is artificially illumi- 

 nated : with their History, Characters, Manners and Places of Abode ; on ten 4to 

 plates and their explanations, drawn and engraved from Nature by J. Hill, Member 

 of the Imperial Academy.' This work, Dr. Hagen says, has been rendered notorious 

 by the remark of Fabricius in his ' Species Insectorum' (Pref. p. 8), — ' at damnandae 

 memoriae J. Hill, qui decadem Insectorum Londini 1773, 4to, figuris fictitiis edidit.' 

 After quoting on this point a remark of Percheron, in his ' Bibliographic' — ' C'est 

 une question que l'on peut examiner de nouvean, maintenant que Ton possede tant de 

 materiaux que Fabricius ne connaissait pas,' — Dr. Hagen goes on to say, for reasons 

 which he gives, that he does not think the figures are fictitious ; at the same time al- 

 lowing, that even for the period at which they appeared, they are very bad, and that 

 the descriptions are no better. As an example, he gives the remark upon Alucita pal- 

 lida: — 'A studious gentleman, very subject to the headache, sneezing one day with 

 violence, as he was writing, saw some atoms a moment afterward upon a sheet of white 

 paper that lay upon his table,' &c. This, he says, ' Westwood, in his 'Introduction' 

 (vol. ii. p. 5), quotes without further remark, so that he does not seem to have suspected 

 any deception. Stephens, and all the other English authors, entirely ignore Hill's 

 work, and yet his figures are not worse than fig. 3, tab. 6, in Harris's ' Exposition,' 

 from which Stephens, without any remark, makes out Caenis Harrisella, anew, and, to 

 him, unknown species.' 



" Dr. Hagen gives the following remarks upon Hill's figures, and adds that he 

 should be happy to hear the opinions of other, and particularly English, entomologists, 

 on this matter: — 



" Tab. 1. Tenthrcdo luctuosa, from Uxbridge. (A small Hymenopteron). 



" Tab. 2. Tenthredo variegata, from England. (A small Hymenopteron). 



" Tab. 3. Sphex peetinipes, from Ireland. (Not to be made out). 



" Tab. 4. Myrmeleon Formicarium, from France and Italy. (Doubtless M. tetra- 

 grammicum). 



" Tab. 6. Cynips Qucrcus-folii, from Norway. (Bad, but a Hymenopteron). 



" Tab. 7. Ephemera Culiciformis, from Eshcr, in England. (Very bad, but cer- 

 tainly a small species of Pcrlidaj). 





