464 ' Linnaan Society. 



3rd of July 1832 ; and he regards it as a subject of curious inquiry 

 for what purpose, if not for their own future provision, they could 

 accumulate these stores ? Could they be intended as food for the 

 Aphides during winter ? That they work all night has long been 

 known : PHny says only during the full moon, but Mr. Wakefield 

 observed them at work at midnight on two successive nights, the 

 6th and 7th of June, in rainy weather and without any reference to 

 the full moon. The late Mr. Joshua Milne, F.L.S., was summoned 

 by a neighbour one morning in February to see a colony of red 

 ants, which he had turned up while digging in his garden ; and 

 mixed with the ants Mr. Milne saw many living Aphides, and also 

 some vegetable substance on which they had probably subsisted 

 during the winter. Many observers have noticed ants caressing 

 Aphides during the summer ; but Mr. Wakefield had never before 

 met with any one who had seen them together during their winter 

 retreat. 



In confirmation of the storing up of food for winter provision by 

 some species of Ant, Mr. Adam White, F.L.S., referred to Colonel 

 Sykes's Observations on the Storing Ant of Poonah, the Atta pro- 

 vidcns, described and figured in the ' Transactions of the Entomo- 

 logical Society ;' and to a Monograph of the East Indian Ants by 

 Mr. Jerdon, published first in the ' Asiatic Journal/ and subse- 

 quently in the. * Annals of Natural History.' 



Mr. Adam White, F.L.S., also exhibited the type-specimen of a 

 fine Prionidous Beetle {Baladeva Walkeri), described by Mr. Water- 

 house, from the collection of the late Sir Patrick Walker, and closely 

 related to Dorysthenes rostratus, Vig., the type-specimen of which, 

 described by Fabricius under the name of Cyi'tognathus rostratus, 

 from the cabinet of Sir Joseph Banks, forms part of the collection 

 presented to the Linnean Society by that distinguished patron of 

 science. Mr. White regretted that he had been unable to attend 

 the last meeting of the Society, at which Mr. Curtis's paper on 

 Hypocephalus was read. He thought, however, that Mr. Curtis 

 laid too great stress on the tarsal system, which Mr. W. S. MacLeay 

 had shown to be very weak when used alone as a leading character, 

 a fact of which Latreille himself was well aware. He stated that 

 having for years studied Longicorn Beetles, he could not fail to be 

 struck, the first time he saw the specimen of Hypocephalus, with the 

 correctness of Dr. Burmeister's determination, and with Mr. West- 

 wood's observations on its Longicorn character. To Mr. Curtis's 

 observation that it was pentamerous, he replied that the Parandridee 

 are all so, and yet are essentially Longicorn in type ; that Tricteno- 

 toma of Mr. G. R. Gray, of which four species are now recorded, is 

 heteromerous, and is even sublamellicorn in its antennae; that in- 

 sects, and indeed animals generally, which are fossorial or internal 

 feeders, or aquatic, are often in external characters wonderfully 

 similar to genera in totally diflferent groups, and have (what are 

 often deemed) essential characters of the group so adapted and 

 changed as to be quite altered in external appearance. Of these 



