356 Entomological Society. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



September 5th, 1842.— W. W. Saunders, Esq., F.L.S., President, in 



the Chair. 



Mr. Ingall exhibited a monstrous specimen of Bomhyx castrensis, 

 one side of which was male and the other side female, the division 

 being visible throughout the whole extent of the body. 



Mr. Douglas exhibited a specimen of Notodonta Tritophus, a 

 moth new to Britain, which he had reared from a larva found near 

 Colchester in July last. 



Numerous specimens of Colias Hyale were exhibited by Messrs. 

 Evans and Stevens, captured in Kent, Middlesex and Sussex ; and 

 many other captures of the same species in various localities were 

 also mentioned by different members present, Mr. Marshall stating 

 that it was the opinion of Mr. Hoyer, that the great number which 

 had been observed was owing to the default of the crops of clover 

 last year, when a large supply of seed was obliged to be obtained 

 from Trieste, with which it was supposed that the eggs had been 

 imported. Other members, however, considered that this species 

 was periodical in its appearance, and that the present season was 

 one of the periods of its apparition. 



Mr. S. Stevens also exhibited a fine specimen of Catocala Frax- 

 ini, captured a few evenings previous to the Meeting in his garden 

 at Hammersmith, having been attracted by sugar daubed upon the 

 trunk of a fruit-tree. 



The following memoirs were read : — 



" Note on a species of Acarideous insect which deposits its eggs in 

 great numbers upon stones on commons." By W. W. Saunders, Esq. 



" Notes on the habits oi Megachile Willughbiella? and Megachile 

 centuncularisr By George Newport, Esq., V.P.E.S. 



The first portion of this paper contained an account of the for- 

 mation of the nests of the former of these species of bees in the 

 swing-pole or lever of one of the gates of the locks at Gloucester, 

 communicated by Mr. Clegram ; the situation selected by the bees 

 being evidently very favourable to them, as in a space of fifteen 

 inches long by five inches square, as many as 300 cocoons were 

 found ; the operations of the bees were also shortly described (long 

 previously and more completely detailed by Reaumur and others). 

 The second part of the paper comprised a series of minute observa- 

 tions by the author relative to a variation observed in the economy 

 of the latter species, a female of which had been observed to em- 

 ploy not only rose leaves, but particles of cotton cloth very finely 

 carded or picked to pieces, in the construction of its nest, and 

 which Mr. Newport afterwards discovered was adopted with the 

 view of filling up cavities in the base of the hole in which it had 

 made its nest. 



Notice by Mr. A. White of a monstrous specimen of Prionus 

 (^Macrotoma) Senegalensis^ in which both antennae are furcate from 



