An enlarged view of the saw and ovipositor of the female is given at fig. 10; the saw is lighter in colour, and has teeth on its free edge. arising from the projecting margin of its divisions. The ovipositor itself is curved, and, as well as the saw, is traversed by diagonal lines, giving it the appearance of being divided into separate plates.*

Habits of Nyssia zonaria, and Offer of Specimens.-Nyssia zonaria is very abundant this spring I have taken it in great numbers and fine condition during the last two weeks, and shall be happy to distribute my duplicates at the close of the season, if those in want of the insect will apply to me. It is an extremely sluggish insect during the day, sitting motionless on the sand and feigning death when touched: the males are mostly found partially concealed behind the tufts of grass which dot the sand-hills; about sun-set they wake up and buzz rapidly over the sand in search of the apterous females, which are strewn about, without the smallest attempt at concealment, in such numbers that they might be picked up and measured like shrimps, by the quart. At present I am only acquainted with two spots on the Cheshire coast where N. zonaria occurs, but no doubt there are many others which will be stumbled on accidentally, as these were. The sedentary habits of the female necessarily tend to localize the insect Both the known stations are little hollows among the sand-hills of perhaps an acre in extent, outside of which not a specimen is to be found, and the keenest collector might pass within half a dozen yards of a spot where they are sitting on the sand by hundreds, and not see one. The larva is found from May to August, feeding on yarrow and dwarf sallow.-Edwin Birchall; Oakfield Villa, Birkenhead, April 4, 1861.

Larva of Anticlea berberaria.—I have often found the larva of Anticlea berberaria, in this neighbourhood, feeding upon Berberis vulgaris; but none that I have had agree with Mr. Newman's description of it (Zool. 7361), either in colour, habits or food-plant. Mine were rough, and speckled with red-brown and gray; but as I cannot from memory give a sufficient description of them, I shall be happy to forward some this season. I find them at the end of June, and again in September; the imago in May and August. Thinking there is some mistake in the name of the larva is my apology for writing this note. - Thomas Brown; 13, King's Parade, Cambridge.

[I shall be extremely obliged for the larvæ so kindly offered: with regard to my mistake, I believe I shall be able to give the correct name to the larva I described as that of Anticlea berberaria: many thanks for this correction.-Edward Newman.]

Oviposition of Xanthia ferruginea.-At the end of October I succeeded in getting a few eggs from a female taken at sugar. When first laid they were lemon-colour, but soon turned reddish. They were kept in a cool, rather damp room, and hatched

* M. Snellen van Vollenhoven has informed me that since the above was written the imago of this insect has appeared with him on the 3rd of April, and that the larva has again been met with on willows.-J. W. M.

March 3. The larvæ are feeding well upon the flowers of the wych elm (Ulmus campestris).-H. Harpur Crewe; Drayton-Beauchamp, March 25, 1861.

Oviposition, &c., of Thera juniperata.—During the month of October, 1860, I took several females of this insect. One of them deposited about a score of whitish yellow eggs, on a sprig of juniper. These I kept all the winter in a cold room without a fire. They hatched March 16-20. The young larvæ are feeding well upon the buds of the wild juniper.—Id.

Economy of Micropteryx semicuprella. — The larva lives in young hazel-leaves, making brown mines, which are at first serpentine, of gradually increasing breadth, and always close to the margin of the leaf. At the middle or end of May it descends to the earth, and the perfect insect is produced in the following April. Larva 2 lines long, apodal, slender, almost cylindrical, gradually tapering from the slightly broader pectoral segments. The colour is yellowish white, with the alimentary canal showing through green. The skin is naked; under a lens it appears almost granulated: on each segment is a smooth transverse fold. Head brown, very small, with white bristles; jaws squarish, with four blunt little teeth on the "kaufläche:" prothorax with two brown spots beneath; above with four small brown blotches placed in a curve; anteriorly it appears rather darker from the retracted head showing through. On the sides of each of the abdominal segments is a small raised spot, uncoloured, directed externally, and furnished with a short hair, and near it, more towards the under side, two small bristle-like hairs are perceptible. Anal segment cylindrical, with two bristles projecting backwards.” — Kaltenbach, as translated by Mr. Stainton in the Intelligencer,' x. 16.

The Emerald Wing.-Between the little river which runs through the plain at the head of the Bay and the stony, rank, weed-grown little hills on the right, is a narrow grassy strip, thickly studded with the green culms and broad white umbels of a gigantic species of Archangelica, and where Solomon's-seal, and Trollius orientalis grow in the wildest profusion. A long gray Lixus bores into all the stems of the Archangelica, drilling round holes with his cylindrical snout. Here Buckley finds an emerald wing. It is the elytron of a genus of Buprestidæ, and is greatly admired by the coleopteromaniacs. Every man of them is desirous of obtaining the perfect insect. Some go north and some south; the plains are scoured, the mountains climbed, and the valleys searched in vain. ""Tis not in mortals to command success," but I think it rather hard that unsuccessful efforts are usually consigned to oblivion. The results so triumphantly set forth,-the new genera discovered, and the beautiful forms for the first time brought to light by the insect-net or the dredge, are very gratifying, and are duly recorded; but who shall chronicle the failures, the keen disappointments; the labour thrown away, and the energy and enterprise fruitlessly expended; the tons of mud sifted, the bushels of sand examined, the huge stones upturned, and the bushes beaten in despair; no fragment to kindle hope, no beetle to reward the patient enthusiast. Collinson the indefatigable is seen severely scrutinizing the fissured bark of old trunks and the sound bark of stately trees, peering, like a jackdaw, into rotten wood, or scratching up the earth like any terrier anxious about a rat. On a sudden he rivets his inquiring gaze on a young oak, and gives au apology for an Indian war-whoop; for he sees the owner of the emerald wing sunning himself on the tender green surface of a leaf. I remember a great hunt for another emerald beetle (Drypta emarginata), with old Turner, in Hampshire, at pretty Alverstoke. In vain we toiled and tore up the grassy bank; the old man growled and swore in a deep 2 H

VOL. XIX.

undertone at Anchomenus prasinus, which was always running out, giving him false hopes. At length he finds a veritable Drypta. Drawing a long breath he exclaims, this time aloud and jubilant, "Glory, &c. &c. &c.! I got 'un!"-Arthur Adams; St. Vladimir Bay, Manchuria.

Notes on two New Brachelytra.—I have taken and determined two Brachelytrous insects which I believe have not yet been recorded as British.

1. Oligota apicata, Erichs. It belongs to the ovate section, averages about half a line in length, and is at once distinguished from all its British congeners by the two last joints of the abdomen and the legs being a clear fulvous-yellow, and by the two first joints of the antennæ being much longer than the succeeding ones, but the second about the same length as the first. I took eight specimens from the débris of fern, in an old shed at the Holt Forest in Hampshire, on the 1st of April, 1861. The insect is remarkable for the cool and deliberate way in which it slowly marches over the paper on which the "shakings" are placed. Erichson says he has taken one specimen only. 2. Bledius crassicollis, Erichs. It belongs to the section which has thorax and head unarmed, and is the only British species, I believe, which has a smooth space and no furrow along the middle of the thorax, which is also strongly punctured. My specimens have all testaceous-red elytra, with a darkish stain near the scutellum. The elytra are coarsely punctured. The abdomen is black, with testaceous apex. It is a small species, about the size of B. unicornis, larger only than B. arenarius, of those which I possess, averaging 13 line. I took many specimens from a sandy bank near Walmer, on the 8th of August, 1857, and have given them away as B. crassicollis, but have never published any account of the insect. I have seen none but my own specimens.-John A. Power; 52, Burton Crescent, April 17, 1861.

Captures of Coleoptera at Sanderstead.-On the 24th of March we spent a most pleasant and profitable day at Sanderstead Downs, near Croydon. Among a whole host of common things we found the following:- Panagæus quadripustulatus (5), Mycetophorus splendidus (12), M. angularis (1), M. punctatus (2), M. splendens (1), Bolitobius analis (5), Acidota cruentata (1). On the 6th inst. we again took two more P. 4-pustulatus.-A. § M. Solomon; 16, Graham Villas, Pownall Road, Dalston, April 19, 1861.

Capture of Meloe cicatricosus.—On the 14th of April I captured twenty fine specimens of this insect at Ramsgate.-A. Solomon.

Plague of Ants in Honduras.—As for the ants, their name is legion. I do not know whether they should be called buccaneers or filibusters, but they appropriate everything they can get at, and locate themselves everywhere. They are wonderfully industrious in carrying out their predatory views, and display a great contrast to the inhabitants of Honduras, who do not know what industry means, and abhor continuous labour. There are two colours of ants, black and red, and a great variety of sizes. Some of the large black ones are half an inch long; those in the houses are generally of the smaller sizes. Every tree and bush is infested with some kind or other of them. If you shoot a bird and do not speedily pick it up it will be covered with them; if you lay a bird down for a few minutes, beware how you take it up, for if you do so incautiously they will be on your hand in no time, and resent your claiming your own by instant biting. They are most savage little wretches when interfered with or molested. Take care also how you sit down, either in the forest or anywhere out of doors, or you may jump up again quicker than pleases you. The house we occupied at Comayagua was overrun by ants. They were constantly occupied in

excavating the walls and depositing the earth in the shape of pills in large heaps on the floor below. Nothing would stop them; gunpowder was tried, and arsenic mixed with sugar was poured down their holes, but to no purpose; still the mining went on: the tables and food were overrun, and the latter damaged by them; they got into tea, beer, wine, and everything else that was left exposed; if a piece of bread, meat or fruit was left on a table for an hour or so, they would find it out and would soon be seen in a long stream passing to and fro over the floor and up the legs of the table. The only way we could keep our bread from them was by putting it in a basket suspended from a beam by a single string. I was obliged to do the same with the birds shot, for if left on a shelf or table the ants would quickly find them.-G. C. Taylor, in' Ibis,' ii. 21.

Australian Ants burying their dead.-One very hot and cloudless day, when not a breath of air stirred the leaves, my eldest boy (four years old), coming up from the beach, fatigued and hot, threw himself on a grassy mound near where I was sitting, and remained quietly enjoying the rest, and anticipating the pleasure he would have in showing to his sister the pretty shells and corals he had found. I was startled by a sudden scream, such as one only gives when in terrible pain. A snake was my first thought, and in horror I went to the child; but was at once reassured on seeing him covered by "soldier ants," on whose nest he had unwittingly lain down. Some of the insects still clung on with their forceps, and stung my poor boy, who roared with pain at every fresh attack, whilst I killed them as fast as I could, assisted by the nurse. At length all were removed, about twenty being left dead on the ground. Going to see the little fellow bathed with something to ease the pain, I was absent about half an hour, and then returned to the same place, when I saw a large number of the ants surrounding the dead ones. Being fond of Natural History, and having read much concerning the instinct of ants, I determined to watch them closely now. At last four ran off very quickly, and I followed them until I saw them enter a hillock containing an ants' nest, which we had in vain tried to get rid of on account of the annoyance caused by their close vicinity to our sitting-tent. They remained here about five minutes, when a number more came out two by two, and proceeded slowly to the place where their dead companions lay. Here they seemed to wait for something; and presently we saw coming from the other side, near the creek, a number surpassing those I had followed, and halting in the same place. Then two ants took up one of the dead ones and marched off, followed by two others as mourners; then two others entered the procession with a second dead ant, succeeded, in the same way, by another pair, and so on, until all the dead were taken up-a number of, I should think, two hundred bringing up the rear. Following the train, I found that the two emptyhanded followers relieved their fellows in advance, the latter falling behind in the place of those who relieved them, and thus continuing to alternate from time to time. They had now gone a considerable distance towards the sea-side, when they stopped at a sandy hillock, where those who marched in the rear of the procession commenced operations by making holes; but I soon observed that only about half the number took part in this employment. When a sufficient number of graves had been dug, the dead bodies were laid in them, and I found that those ants which had hitherto stood idle were deputed to cover them in. About six would not stir from their places, and on these the others fell and killed them; whereupon they made a single large pit at a distance from the other graves, into which all the six were put and duly covered up. The ants then all paired off and marched back to the scene of slaughter,

where they remained together for a few minutes, when each company left for their own habitation. The observation of this curious proceeding gave me great pleasure; and I had frequent opportunities afterwards of seeing the insects act much in the same way. If one of the "workers," however (who are much smaller than the rest), were killed, it was buried where it fell, and no friends attended the funeral.-Mrs. Lewis Hutton, in Proceedings of Linnean Society,' Vol. v. No. 19, p. 217. [I may say that had this communication reached my hands through any ordinary channel I should have respectfully declined it as a hoax; but, seeing it has received the imprimatur of those athletes of Science who decide on the propriety of publishing or rejecting the communications transmitted to the Linnean Society, I have no choice but to accept it as veracious. I would, however, caution my younger readers from drawing any inferences as to the habits of ants in general, or even of Australian ants in particular, from the remarkable fact here related of an individual nest.-Edward Newman.]

The Wreck of the Medusa. Fleecy white clouds sail softly across the pale blue sky, and a single skylark sings clear and loud overhead. From the bay on the south side of the Cape I pass to the bay on the north side. I reach a sandy down, where many flowers remind me of home and "Merrie England." I see Erodium maritimum and Linaria vulgaris, but not the "wee modest crimson-tipped flower" we all love so well; in its place is Dianthus chinensis; this is everywhere, so is a pretty Campanula ; and springing up in dry stony places are the spikes of a white-flowered Sedum, looking just like a pigmy Aloe in a pigmy desert. Grasshoppers leap up around me in prodigious numbers, and among the stunted shrubs slowly stalks the grass-green Mantis. The humming-bird hawk-moth hovers around the spikes of the Sedum, and flitting about are painted lady and clouded yellow butterflies. On turning the stones we find a bronze Chrysomela, an Opatrum and an Akis; Cymatia runs rapidly out, and there is generally a dark Lithobius. We come now to the edge of an abrupt, broken, yellow-fronted cliff, whence issues the harsh, grating song of the Cicada, and where, flying backwards and forwards, are the blue rock-pigeons. We descend the cliff, and before us is a blue bay with blue bills in the distance. Around us are brown, flat-topped and angular rocks, bristling with black patches of juvenile mussels, and rough with white patches of juvenile barnacles. In the little pools crawls Lampania zonalis the ubiquitous, and therein disport lively, big-headed gobies and the sly, artful blenny. Here also are seen running about, in a busy, cheerful, bustling manner, the beautiful golden plover, the red-billed oystercatcher, the greenshank and the sanderling. We are now on the "lean ribbed" sand, a tawny waste extending right and left for miles. The spotted teal are feeding at the margin of the water; but what is that mysterious object rolling and tumbling in the ripple of the tide ? It is an immense Rhizostoma, stranded and helpless, at the mercy of the waves. It is certainly the biggest jelly-fish I ever saw, measuring three feet across the disk. The unfortunate Medusa is not only wrecked, but eaten. Chinamen come down, like Riff pirates or Cornish wreckers, to the scene of the disaster, and cut off huge slices of the firm translucent blubber, and, carefully wrapping them in clothes, carry them away for gastronomic uses. Doubtless their insipid mess of boiled rice is greatly improved thereby at evening "chow-chow." This is the only instance I have known of any of the Acalephiæ being used as food.-A. Adams; Cape Vansittart, Gulf of Lian-tung.