Societies and Academies

Abstract

LONDON.Entomological Society, October I.—The Right Hon. Lord Walsingham, F.R.S., President, in the chair.—The Rev. Dr. Walker exhibited, and read notes on, a long and varied series of Crymodes exulis, collected in June and July last in Iceland. In reply to a question by Lord Walsingham as to whether all the forms referred by Dr. Walker to Crymodes exulis had been identified as belonging to that species, Mr. Kirby said the species was a very variable one, and that several forms had teen described from Labrador and Greenland. Mr. South stated he believed that most of the forms had been described by Dr. Staudinger.—Dr. D. Sharp, F.R.S., exhibited a specimen of Ornithomyia avicularia, L., taken near Dartford, to which there were firmly adhering-apparently by their mandibles-several specimens of a mallophagous insect. He also exhibited specimens of fragile Diptera, Neuroptera, and Lepidoptera, to show that the terminal segments in both sexes might be dissected off and mounted separately without the structures suffering from shrivelling or distortion.—Mr. G. F. Hampson exhibited a series of Erebia melas, taken in July last, in the Austrian Alps (Dolomites), by Mrs. Nicholls. Captain Elwes observed that this species was abundant in the Pyrenees, but he had never been able to obtain specimens from any other part of Europe; and that it had been left to an English lady to first take a species of Erebia new to these Alps. He added that the species only frequented very steep and stony slopes on the mountains, so that its capture was attended with difficulty.—Mr. McLachlan, F.R.S., exhibited specimens of an extraordinary Neuropterous larva found by Mr. B. G. Nevinson in tombs at Cairo. He said that this larva had been assigned to the genus Netnoptera by Schaum, and Roux had previously described and figured it as an abnormal apterous hexapod under the name of Necrophilus arenarius. Mr. Nevinson supplemented these remarks with an account of his capture of the specimens in the Egyptian tombs.—Mr. G. T. Baker exhibited species of the genus Boarmia from Madeira; and also melanic varieties of Gracilaria syringella from the neighbourhood of Birmingham.—Mr. W. F. H. Blandford exhibited and remarked on specimens of Dermestes vulpinus, a wood-boring beetle, which had been doing much damage to the roofs of certain soap-works in the neighbourhood of London.—Mr. R. W. Lloyd exhibited a specimen of Carabus catenulatus, in which the femur of the right foreleg was curiously dilated and toothed.—The Rev. C. F. Thornewill exhibited a black variety of the male of Argynnis aglaia, taken by himself in July last on Cannock Chase; also a number of living larvæ of a species of Eupithecia feeding on the flower-heads of Tanacetum vulgare. He expressed some doubt as to the identity of the species, but the general opinion was that the larvæ were those of Eupithecia absynthiata.—Mr. H. Goss exhibited, for Mr. G. Bryant, a variety of the larva of Trichiura cratægi.—Mr. C. G. Barrett exhibited a specimen of Plusia moneta, Fabr., a species new to Britain, taken at Reading in July last. Mr. Goss stated that the first specimen of this species had been taken at Dover last June, and was now in the collection of Mr. Sydney Webb, of that town. Mr. Kirby said that Mynheer Snellen had reported this species as being unusually common in Holland a few years ago.—Mr. W. Dannatt exhibited a variety of Papilio hectorides from Paraguay. Mr. O. Salvin, F.R.S., said he had seen this form before.—Mr. C. J. Gahan exhibited a curious little larva-like creature, found in a mountain stream in Ceylon, and observed that there was some doubt as to its true position in the animal kingdom. It was made up of six distinct segments, each of which bore a single pair of laterally directed processes or unjointed appendages. Mr. Hampson remarked that the appendages were very suggestive of the parapodia of certain chaatopod worms. Lord Walsingham and Mr. McLachlan expressed an opinion that the animal was of myriopodous affinities, and was not the larva of an insect.—Mr. Baker read a paper entitled “Notes on the genitalia of a gynandromorphous Eronia hippia.”