356 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



(4.) Notes of the Insects which feed on the Esere, or Ordeal- Bean of 

 Old Calabar. By John Alex. Smith, M.D. 



At the last meeting of the Society Dr Smith read extracts 

 from a letter he had received from the Eev. Alexander Kobb 

 of Old Calabar, in reference to his discovery of insects feed- 

 ing on the Esere, or Poison-bean ; and at the same time Dr 

 Hewan exhibited the specimens of these insects which he 

 had got from Mr Eobb and brought home for examination. 



Dr Smith was rather surprised at the apparent discre- 

 pancy of Mr Kobb's description of the insect as a small grey 

 moth, with that of the insects also given by Mr Kobb to the 

 late Eev. Mr Baillie, and by him to Dr Thomas E. Fraser, 

 which had been described as being the Crimson-speckled 

 Footman Moth, — the Deiopeia pulchella. Dr Thomas E. 

 Fraser, in his paper published in the " Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History" for May 1864, gives the following ac- 

 count of the insects found feeding on the Calabar bean 

 received by him from the Eev. Mr Baillie : — " I am indebted 

 to my friend, Dr J ohn Anderson of this city, for the identi- 

 fication of this moth. Specimens of the caterpillar, cocoons, 

 and imago, were kindly sent by him to the British Museum, 

 and were pronounced by the authorities of the insect depart- 

 ment to be the Deiopeia pulchella (ord. Lepidoptera, fam. 

 Tineidm, Leach). The description and figure given in the 

 fourth volume of Curtis's ' British Entomology' appears to 

 correspond accurately with the imago in my possession." 



Dr Smith got the phial containing the insects (cater- 

 pillars, pupse, and moths) from Dr Hewan for examination, 

 and found : — 



1. The Caterpillars varied considerably in size, but they 

 were all of the smooth and naked character to be expected 

 in the inhabitants of tunnels cut by themselves in the 

 hard seeds or kernels of the poison-beans, and none of them 

 appeared to resemble the hairy larvae of Deiopeia pulchella. 

 They measured from about Jth of an inch to fths or nearly 

 an inch in length, and differed proportionally in thickness 

 from sVth to /o tns of an inch, probably the same caterpillar 

 of different ages, as the markings on all were alike. The 



