Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/76

1242 he had derived very great pleasure from the reading of his paper, which he thought extremely interesting and important, and he regretted that the law of the Society pre- vented the fellows from going into any discussion upon it. He should have liked to have made some remarks upon it himself for the purpose of obtaining the opinions of others upon the subject which he thought worthy of discussion, one of which he noticed especially as that which referred to the influence of light. — Edward Newman.

Battle between a Dragon-fly and a Wasp. — During a recent visit at Killarney in Ireland, while walking one morning in a neighbouring garden, my attention was sud- denly attracted by a loud rustling noise, — a continued fluttering, as of something in severe pain, — which seemed to emanate from a bed at the distance of a few yards from the place where I stood. After listening for some time, I walked quietly up to the spot from whence it appeared to proceed, but could see nothing. At length, after much curiosity as to the cause of such an unusual sound, I observed beneath the edging of box with which the border was surrounded, a most extraordinary conflict going on be- tween a dragon-fly and a wasp, in which the former was struggling for his life, while the latter held him firmly to the ground, endeavouring to mutilate him in every pos- sible way. Wishing to see the whole process, I would not disengage the dragon-fly, but pushed them a little further from the edge, in order that they might have room to " fight it out," and there stood in cold-blood to watch the issue. The wasp appeared in a most furious rage, ever and anon walking over the dragon-fly and using his jaws to considerable advantage. He attacked him in almost every part of the body in suc- cession, but more particularly in the head and legs ; first, biting actually off large por- tions of the latter, and then seizing on the former and fixing his jaws firmly in his eyes. In this manner he amused himself for upwards of twenty minutes; when, as though satiated with rage, he flew off and left his wretched foe writhing under the most agonizing torture, and apparently in a dying state. After waiting to see whether he would return, I picked up the dragon-fly (or at least all that remained of him) ; when to my astonishment, I found that the wasp had actually not only mutilated both his eyes, broken the membranes of his wings, and nearly wrenched off his head (which was turned with the mouth uppermost ! ) — but had positively eaten off all his legs, with the exception of a small part of one of the anterior femora, and left him a living trunk, truly ridiculous to behold, and perfectly unable to remove an inch from the fatal spot. Not knowing the state of the dragon-fly's feelings, and thinking I might have possibly over-rated my friend's misfortunes, I kept him to see if he would at all recover the calamity, but in the course of half-an-hour he expired in spite of all my exertions. His remains I have still in my possession. I have seen many battles between dragon- flies and other insects, but never one on so decided a scale as this. — T. Vernon Wollaston; Jesus College, Cambridge, October 29th, 1845.

A paper by H. Deane, Esq., being a continuation of a former communication read at the last meeting of the Society 'On Fossil Xanthidia found in Chalk' was read. After a brief summary of the former paper, in which he stated that various species of the genus Xanthidium had been found by him in the Folkstone chalk, Mr, Deane went on to state, that this discovery by affording the means of isolating and mounting