edition of his 'Ornithological Rambles,' that an immature Iceland gull was shot in January, 1852, near Pagham: it is now in the Chichester Museum. -Arthur John Clark-Kennedy; Little Glemham Rectory, Wickham Market, Suffolk, May 20, 1874.

The Bite of a Viper.-To be bitten by a viper in our country is such a comparatively rare occurrence that perhaps it may not be uninteresting to your readers to hear of a really authentic case which occurred quite recently in the immediate neighbourhood of London. On Sunday, May 2, a young man, F. G., aged twenty-eight, was lying on the grass in Epping Forest, between Loughton and Buckhurst Hill, and in stretching out his arm backwards he unintentionally brought his hand down upon a snake, which immediately bit him upon the first joint of the right fore finger. He at once killed the animal, his description of which will only answer to that of a viper, and went in search of a medical man, who applied nitrate of silver freely to the sore and bound a bandage tightly round the fore arm. Some hours afterwards he was brought to University College Hospital, when he came under my observation, and gave the following account of his experiences. The first thing he noticed was that there were two minute wounds on his finger, which were bleeding freely. Very soon the part began to swell and two blisters formed round the wound; at the same time he felt faint and unwell, and was very sick. He vomited in all four times, once within ten minutes of the accident, and the last time four and a half hours afterwards. Pain and redness rapidly extended up the arm and increased for some hours, the sense of discomfort continuing; but by next day the pain and uneasiness had disappeared, and though the swelling remained for some time, it also gradually subsided. In the course of a few days extensive bruising came out over the whole limb; the blisters on the finger were pricked once or twice, and ultimately a rather deep ulcer formed at the wounded part, which has not yet (June 4th) completely healed. It is possible that the swelling and subsequent bruising may have been partly owing to the ligature, which seems to have been applied somewhat heroically to the fore arm. In conclusion, it may be advisable to remind your readers that, in the case of an injury from the tooth of an adder, or any animal whose bite is supposed to be venomous, the best course to pursue is immediately, even before killing the animal in question,-to suck the wound, of course remembering not to swallow the material so obtained. The danger from the contact of the poison with the mucous membrane of the mouth, unless there be a raw surface there, is extremely slight, and the chance of preventing mischief in this way is by far greater than from the most extensive application of any caustic with which we are acquainted.-Rickman J. Godlee.

Fox Shark off Scilly. A fine specimen of the thresher or fox shark (Carcharias vulpes) was recently taken in mackerel drift-nets off Scilly, and has been on exhibition in the Corpus Christi Fair, held here to-day. It measures over all thirteen feet, consisting of- from snout to eye, four inches; from eye to fork six feet four inches; and from fork to extreme tip of the tail six feet four inches. I could not ascertain its weight. The pilot-fish has also again been taken here.-Thomas Cornish; Penzance, June 5, 1874.

Dorse near the Lizard, Cornwall.-I have had brought to me a dorse, two feet six inches in length over all: it was caught near the Lizard. I mention the fact that I may, by an accumulation of instances, prove that it is a fish which is not rare in British waters. It is worth catching for another reason. It spawns early in the year, and, having recovered, is in good edible condition.-Id.; June 10, 1874.

Note on a Pied Lobster.-On the 11th of June a lobster of about three pounds weight, considered by the fishermen to be a female, but with no spawn attached, was caught about a mile off Cromer, in which the normal colour was curiously intermixed over the whole surface of the animal with pale yellow or yellowish horn-colour. I saw this lobster alive, and observed that this pied appearance was present on the body, head, tail, legs, claws, and even on one of the antennæ (the other having been lost). I may add that the irregular intermingling of the two colours closely resembled the ordinary markings of tortoiseshell.-J. H. Gurney.

Proceedings of Scientific Societies.

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

June 1, 1874.- Sir SIDNEY SMITH SAUNDERS, C.M.G., President, in the chair.

Donations to the Library.

The following donations were announced, and thanks voted to the donors Transactions of the American Entomological Society,' vol. ii. nos. 2 and 3; vol iv. nos. 1-4; presented by the Society. Bulletin of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences,' vol. i. no. 4; by the Society. 'Bulletin de la Société Impériale des Naturalistes de Moscou,' 1873, no. 3; by the Society. Coleopterologische Hefte,' xii.; by the Editor, Baron E. von Harold. Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift,' 1873, 3, 4; 1874,

1,2; by the Society. no. 26; by the Club.

The Journal of the Quckett Microscopical Club,' The Canadian Entomologist,' vol. vi. no. 4; by the

Editor. The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' for June; by the Editors. 'Newman's Entomologist' and 'The Zoologist' for June;' by the Editor. Butler, Lepidoptera Exotica,' pt. xx., and Cistula Entomologica,' pt. ix. ; by E. W. Janson. The Lepidoptera of Turkestan, from the Collection of M. Fedtschenko,' by M. Erschoff; by the Author. Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung,' vol. xxxv, nos. 1-6; by the Society.

Election of Members.

M. Achille Guenée, of Chateaudun, France, was balloted for and elected an Honorary Member of the Society, in the room of M. Guérin-Méneville, deceased.

Mr. Alan Ogier Ward, of Putney, was balloted for and elected a Subscriber to the Society.

Exhibitions, &c.

Mr. McLachlan exhibited specimens of the white ant (Calotermes sp.), recently bred at Kew from a sample of the wood of the tree (Trachylobium Hornmannianum) that produces the gum copal of Zanzibar.

Mr. Stainton read a letter he had received from the Rev. P. H. Newnham, of Stonehouse, Devon, stating that he had taken two living specimens of Deiopeia pulchella, on the opposite side of the river Tamar, in Cornwall. Mr. Stainton remarked on the unusual circumstance of the insect having been captured at such an early season as the month of May.

Mr. Charles O. Waterhouse sent for exhibition a living specimen of a Mantid (Empusa pauperata), in the larva or pupa state, brought from Hyères by the Rev. Mr. Sandes, of Wandsworth. The captor stated that he had supplied it with flies, &c., in the hope of ascertaining the mode in which it seized them, but that he could not induce it to eat anything while he was looking on. Mr. Stainton suggested that if he had put a living spider in the cage it would probably have seized it immediately.

The Secretary read the following note, which he had received from Mr. William D. Gooch, of Spring Vale, Little Umhlanga, Natal, respecting the habits of the Longicorn "coffee-borer of Natal:

"The egg, as far as we can determine, is laid about the level of the soil, about the middle of December, at a time when the trees look most healthy, are making most wood, and the circulation of the sap is most free, it being also during the damp part of the year. I have, however, despite considerable investigation, been unable to get specimens of the egg, and so watch the development of the larva from the earliest stages.

"Specimens of the larva have already been laid before the members of your Society, but I forward by this post also some specimens.

"In only three cases, about January or December, have I met with any insect in the bark, between the level of the ground and the roots, at all corresponding to the larger insect found in the wood. On examining those

trees with larvæ in, with hardly any exception, we discover the bark eaten away, or rather, I should say, wanting about the level of the ground; from this place to the entrance-hole of the borer in the forks of the roots there is always to be observed a more or less irregular channel or road cut in the bark leading from one to the other, and in this channel I discovered two of the three small specimens of larvæ mentioned above. The entrance-hole of the larva is very irregularly placed; sometimes it begins as an excavation along one of the roots at a fork in the rootlets; sometimes it enters immediately under the first root, hardly below the ground. I have not noticed the entrance of the larva above ground, except in two instances, when there was a hole below the lowest primary in one case and the second primary in the other. I did not, however, satisfactorily determine that these were the same insect, or even if so, they may be considered as accidental cases. The excavation of the wood of the tree by the larva need not be entered into, as every one must be well aware of their powerful mandibles and their unlimited appetites. How long the insect remains in the larva form I have not yet been able to judge; but in consequence of finding always two and sometimes three distinct sizes in the insects taken out of a hundred trees, I imagine not less than two years, and possibly so long as three. The first transformation at present I have only observed in October; but I am half inclined to think there is a double brood, and another transformation about May as I was not in the colony at that time last year, having given my attention to the question since July last, I am looking forward next month to deciding this point, as unluckily we have many diseased trees to operate on.

"I enclosed with the larva formerly sent to you a specimen of the pupa; it was first discovered about the beginning of October, and was found till the middle of December. The first perfect insects were found in the beginning of December and the last week in November.

"The imago, from the name, I imagine to be Anthorea leuconotus, a longicorn, with the elytra covered with very fine down, almost a bloom, and grayish colour, the bases of the elytra being of a reddish chocolate, with a purplish shot on it when newly emerged. The insect, I think, lies torpid after its complete transformation till some drying day' comes, when it bores its way out; but what happens to it afterwards I have never been able to discover: only three specimens were found on the whole estate, although I offered sixpence each for them, and we were splitting trees with two and three perfect insects in them each. When I speak of a 'drying day,' I mean one of the hot winds' from the north-west, which occur in our spring here, taking the thermometer up to 100° in the shade, and considerably affecting insect-life. I noticed especially that the morning after one of these hot winds, on splitting some of the trees, the insects looked so lively that we left off splitting in haste, and gathering the trees together in large heaps

burnt them straight off. I said before that only three insects were found at large on the whole plantation by our people; of these two were in copulá on a primary branch of a coffee-tree, the bark of which had been eaten away. This at once suggested to me whether the female before depositing her eggs may not decorticate a small portion of the trunk for the purpose of depositing? I did not see a single specimen on the wing, and in many cases I found the elytra so hard to open that they seemed soldered; nor could I by exposure to the sun or any other means ever induce the perfect insects to take wing; they always crawled.

"So far I have dealt with the insects; I may now add, in reply to some remarks communicated by you in your minutes, that Mr. Keit, the Botanical Curator of our Gardens here, recommended by Dr. Hooker, says that he sees no cause whatever to believe the trees die from any want of vitality, nor do they seem specially affected in any way, yielding good crops and looking well till the borer has very often emerged, after which they languish and die rapidly. I hear from other managers, on strong soils, that very often on one aspect, N. and N.E., they find the developed grub as much as 90 per cent., but that, in the same valley, the opposite slope, S.W. and S.E. (our cold slopes), the insect is not present above 5 per cent, although the mortality of the trees is about the same. From this I gather either that the insect is a secondary cause, or that the cold aspect is not favorable to the development of the insect beyond the stage when they have damaged the bark, and so more or less killed the tree. In slopes it is noticeable that the lowest side of the tree is that attacked, where by washing from rains the more tender bark is exposed, and very likely the draught cracks a little. My proposed remedies and modus operandi for the prevention of this evil are as follows:

"1. To remove all trees which are visibly affected before the insect matures. This, through non-comprehension of the cause of disease, was not done, and our estate and the adjoining one have suffered by the presence of so many centres of evil left to take effect upon the surrounding coffee.

"2. About the time the egg or young insect is still in or under the bark, to keep a staff of men rubbing the trees round the roots with iron gloves, or sticks, with sand, so as to crush the insect in its larva-state.

"3. About the time the insect emerges, to keep boys hunting for and picking off the beetle as it adheres to the tree.

"4. To let the same boys search for newly-made holes of emergence, and pass wires, &c., down them, so as to destroy the insects therein, in case the beetle should have the habit of re-entering the hole as a cache during the day.

"Your member's suggestion as to the non-destruction of insectivorous birds is a very good one; but I am afraid they are too few, or rather the