MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES 1 33 



attacks of fungoid pests. To some of these your attention has been 

 drawn from time to time at our meetings by the exhibition of 

 specimens, and by the remarks which these provoked. Early in 

 the year many vineyards in certain districts both in this colony 

 and Victoria were infested by myriads of bugs which I am informed 

 by Mr. Skuse, who has submitted specimens to Dr. Bergroth of 

 Finland, are probably an undescribed species of Nysius (family 

 Lygcddce), a genus not hitherto recorded from Australia. 



" Last summer and again this year pastoralists in the eastern 

 colonies and South Australia have been troubled with plagues of locusts 

 ( sometimes referred to as Pachytylus australis, Brunn., but reported as 

 Ghortologa australis by Mr. Koebele, as determined by Saussure), 

 which this year especially have so accumulated in places as to impede 

 railway traffic on some of our country lines by reason of the greasioess 

 imparted to the rails. Mr. Koebele in his report quotes the opinion of 

 a South Australian observer ' that only in such unusually dry seasons 

 as the present (1888) would the locusts migrate, there being no food 

 left for them in the interior of South Australia.' This hypothesis does 

 not seem to be borne out by the experience of last year which was 

 anything but a dry one, As yet we have had only preliminary reports 

 on these matters. There is much room for investigation on the lines 

 laid down in an article in ' Nature ' (Feb. 27th, 1890, p. 403) based on 

 a Report by Mr. Cotes of the Indian Museum, Calcutta, from which we 

 learn that India has been somewhat similary plagued with locusts of 

 recent year-s. Locusts are not altogether a new pest with us, though 

 records of their depredations in the past appear to be scanty, and their 

 visitations not to have been of so desperately destructive a character; 

 nevertheless a few references to their prevalence in this colony in 

 former years will be found in Mr. Russell's ' Climate of New South 

 Wales,' p. 27. It is also possible too that we are now in some measure 

 reaping the results of the reckless and wanton destruction of many of 

 our native birds which has been going on for so long. 



" In this connection also phylloxera as well as rabbits might also 

 claim mention, though I need not go into details. 



" The past year has also furnished us with instances of migratory 

 flights of butterflies of at least one species Bdenois (Purls) teutonia, 

 Don., as reported at our last meeting. The specimens then exhibited 

 were from Inverell, but in the 'Echo' of recent date, swarms, probably 

 of the same species, were reported from Emmaville. In Vol. VII. of 

 our Proceedings will be found a record of similar swarms of the same 

 species observed at Tamworth by one of our members in December, 

 1882. 



" In this, as in other cases of animals which periodically attract 

 notice by their appearance in migratory swarms, our country members 

 will do well to be on the alert in observing and recording, as we have 

 much yet to learn in these matters, and the records of the past are 

 neither so complete nor so systematic as is to be desired. 



"Dr. A. Barclay, of the Bengal Medical Service, early in the year 

 contributed an important paper to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, in 

 which he deals with the subject of the prevalence and character of Rust 

 and Mildew on wheat in India. The number of the journal containing 

 this paper has not yet reached us, but the gist of it will be found in 



