348 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
Now Mr Eobb 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 six 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. 
