316 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES, 
municated a method of driving away the minute Ant which had recently become 
so troublesome in houses in the neighbourhood of London.—Mr. Bainbridge 
exhibited a singular monstrous individual of Clivina fossor , one of the small 
ground Beetles.—-Notes were read from Dr. Buckland and the Rev. M. E. 
Berkeley, on the vegetable nature of various excrescences occasionally observed 
upon insects, the disease to which the House Fly is subject in the autumn, being, 
according to Mr. Berkeley, caused by the presence of a minute Fungus, and not 
being a plethoric kind of disease, as supposed by some writers. The Secretary 
communicated various observations recently made upon this subject, and upon 
the analogous parasitism of insects on the bodies of insects: stating the occurrence 
of one of the Strepsiptera in Ammophila sabulosa , one of the Sand Wasps.—A 
large larva of one of the Lamellicorn Beetles, was also exhibited, from the col¬ 
lection of the Rev. F. W. Hope, from which a Fungus nearly two inches long had 
been produced.—The memoirs read were, 1. On the destruction of the black 
caterpillar of the Turnips by poultry, by Mr. Sells ; 2. Monograph on the genus 
Holoptilus , by J. 0. Westwood, Sec. E. S.; 3. Conclusion of a memoir on the 
different species of insects employed in various parts of the world as food, by the 
Rev. F. W. Hope. 
SHEFFIELD LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
On Friday night, April 6, the regular monthly meeting of the Philosophical 
Society was held in the rooms at the Music Hall, Charles F. Favell, M.D., 
President, in the chair.—Several books were presented, from Mrs. Stovin, 
including Stillingfleet’s Pacts on Natural History , Ray’s Discourses and Let¬ 
ters. , Martyn’s Plants Cantabrigienses , Linn^us’s Flora Lapponica , and 
Henslow’s Botany. There was likewise laid on the table, by Mr. Moss, a large 
specimen of the “ Alleghany Coal," which, though by no means equal in appear¬ 
ance to much of the bituminous Coal of this country, belongs, nevertheless, to the 
same geological era, and will doubtless become, in course of time, of vast 
importance to that quarter of the United States in which the formation occurs.-— 
The oft-repeated subject of the erection of a Philosophical Hall was again mooted, 
and a set of beautiful architectural drawings, relative to what such a structure 
should be, was exhibited. The gentleman who moved that this subject should 
be referred to the Committee, remarked, that while he had long been convinced 
that the Society would never be in a position to build out of its own funds, nor 
able to beg the money requisite for such a purpose, he had latterly entertained 
the opinion that a hall might be advantageously raised in shares, even if it might 
not be to the interest of some individuals, of competent means, to erect, on private 
speculation, such a building with the requisite accommodations, in the certainty of 
finding a satisfactory tenant.—Dr. Holland read an elaborate and interesting 
