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Entomological Society of London.—The council are making strenuous efforts to augment the number of their members and subscribers, so as to enable them to publish more of the valuable scientific material in their hands. In this effort we wish them entire success.

The Driver-ant.—Fire will frighten almost any creature; but it has no terrors for the driver-ant, which will dash at a glowing coal, fix its jaws in the burning mass, and straightway shrivel up in the heat.—Homes without Hands.

Wasps scarce in London.—When we lived in Walworth, we scarcely ever saw a wasp in or about the house; but here on Denmark Hill they are tolerably plentiful. I think the fact of their extreme scarcity in central London may be accounted for by their seldom going more than two miles from their nests. Wasps may be abundant enough at Barnes, and yet quite unknown "in London."—W. R. Tate.

Hybernation of Flies.—On the 9th of October, 1863, I ascended a disused semaphore in Surrey for the purpose of enjoying the view from the top. On it was a flag-pole notched for climbing, like the bears' pole in Regent's Park, and covered with red baize. In order to climb this pole, I took hold of it, when out tumbled, through holes in the baize, and at the bottom of it, scores of bluebottles. I conceive that they must have got there to pass the winter in a state of torpidity, and probably T. H. F.'s were induced to leave their hybernacula prematurely by the heat of his rooms.—W. R. Tate.

Development of Butterfly-wings.—Mr. Sidebottom, in a paper read at the Literary and Philosophical Society, Manchester, January 16th, said that the great and rapid increase of size in the wings of the Lepidoptera, soon after the insect emerges from the chrysalis, is caused by air, taken in through the spiracles, being sent into the vessels of the wings; the membrane is expanded in consequence, and the scales, which were before packed under each other as closely as possible, are made to slide out until they remain in the fully-developed wing like the tiles of a roof. He exhibited preserved specimens of the currant moth and the tiger-moth with the wings, both in their small and in their expanded state; also a coloured sketch of one of them; and it was seen that in the unexpanded state the wings lie flat without any folding; and all their markings are a correct representation in miniature of what they ultimately become.—The Reader.

The Treasury has authorized the expenditure of £3,000 for printing the Royal Society's "Index to the Scientific Periodical Literature of the Nineteenth Century."

What do Crickets eat?—I am afraid that my own experience will not lead me to regard crickets with a favourable eye, if I look at the useful rather than the ornamental. I have by me at the present moment a pair of slippers, the soles of which are very much gnawed by the crickets. They must plead guilty, for they were caught in the act. A young friend of mine can tell you dolefully that they do not confine their ravages to old boots.—R. B.

A Wasp and its Victim.—I once witnessed a combat between a wasp and a yellow underwing moth. The wasp espied the moth in a small outhouse, and immediately attacked it; the moth, with no offensive weapons, struggled bravely for nearly half-an-hour. At last, however, the wasp killed it; it immediately severed the head and body from the tail, and flew off with it; it returned after about ten minutes for the tail, with which it fled away too; it did not take the wings.—J. A. M.

Ants Storing Grain.—It is disputed by some whether ants do carry off grain and store it; but the following incident will show that they do so, and to a considerable extent. At the side of my house at Zante there was a threshing-floor, or rather the paved space was converted temporarily into one, a pole having been fixed in the centre, to which horses were attached, and driven round and round to tample out the corn. A pile of wheat was left here unthreshed for a few days. In the meantime the ants committed depredations upon it, and, on one of their nests being opened, two good-sized tin cans-ful of grain were found deposited in it.—J. J. Lake, in Athenæum.

Killing Insects for the Cabinet.—Years ago I advocated cyanide of potassium for killing all insects, or rather (if good and easy setting be an object) for stupifying them as immediately as by chloroform, after which they may be killed with oxalic acid if lepidopterous, &c., or by boiling if coleopterous. A small fragment wrapped in blotting-paper, and placed under a perforated-card false-bottom in a wide-mouthed bottle, soon renders the enclosed air more deadly than chloroform; whilst no expense or difficulty attends the use of this substance, which, for photographical purposes, may now be met with everywhere; also, when combined with old laurel-leaves, no stiffening will be found to ensue, even when insects are suffered to die, and remain all night in the bottle. My own plan with Lepidoptera is to pill-box them, and then, as shortly after as possible, to open the pill-box over the wide-mouthed bottle containing the cyanide, into which the moths almost immediately fall, when they may be taken out, stabbed with oxalic acid, and set or left as preferred. By this means females may be also left to deposit their eggs or not, without difficulty.—W. D. Crotch, Weston-super-Mare.