348 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



Now Mr Kobb was himself the first to notice and watch 

 the transformations of this insect, the larvse of which he 

 was astonished to find could feed and thrive on the poison- 

 bean ; he had sent home notes of his observations, and 

 specimens of the bean and of the insects, for the examina- 

 tion of entomologists, and naturally felt, therefore, that the 

 credit of the discovery, whatever that might be, belonged to 

 himself. He also enclosed copies of these notes, which give 

 details of the appearance and changes of the insect ; and 

 stated he was sure the only beans containing insects which 

 had been sent from Old Calabar to Britain were the speci- 

 mens which he had selected and sent home. 



In the notes sent, Mr Eobb states that it was in the end 

 of the year 1863, while collecting the Esere, or poison-beans, 

 that he noticed some of them were perforated by holes, 

 showing apparently that some insect was able to live and feed 

 on them. He made numerous observations on the beans 

 eaten by insects, and found that some of them contained 

 various grubs, as many as four or sis being sometimes in one 

 bean. He watched the progress of the caterpillars, seeing 

 them spin their webs, change into pupse, and at last emerge 

 as perfect insects — a small grey moth, the Esere Moth, as he 

 named it. He traced these transformations of the insect 

 again and again, and noticed that chickens feeding on the 

 excrements of the caterpillars were poisoned. Finding that 

 his friend and colleague Mr Hewan was coming to this 

 country, he gave him notes of his observations, and speci- 

 mens of the beans, with their curious tenants, to bring under 

 the notice of naturalists at home. He also gave specimens 

 of the beans and insects to the late Kev, John Baillie, who 

 followed Mr Hewan home, to allow the subject to be brought 

 fully under the notice of scientific men. 



Mr Hewan informed Dr Smith that he handed over Mr 

 Eobb's notes and specimens to the Botanical Society here ; 

 these notes were read at their meeting of 14th April 1864, 

 and an abstract of them was afterwards published in their 

 Transactions ; but unfortunately, from Mr Hewan's absence, 

 in bad health, in England, the authorship of the paper was 

 erroneously attributed to him. 



