PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 35 



DECEMBER 17, 1853. 



Dr. Ball, President, in the chair. 



The following donations were received :— A Treatise on the Educational Uses of 

 Museums, by Professor E. Forbes, from the author ; and a Treatise on the Propa- 

 gation of Salmon and other Fish, by E. and T. Ashworth, Esqrs., from Mr. 

 Ffennell, Inspecting Commissioner of Fisheries, and thanks ordered to be given to 

 the Donors. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



DECEMBER 5, 1853. 

 Edward Newman, Esq., President, in the chair. 



The following donations were announced, and thanks ordered to be given to the 

 donors : — The " Zoologist" for December ; by the Editor. The " Athenaeum" for 

 November ; by the Editor. The u Literary Gazette" for November ; by the Edi- 

 tor. The " Journal of the Society of Arts" for November ; by the Society. The 

 " Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society," 1853, parts land 2; by the 

 Society. " On two new Species of Calanidae, with Observations on the Spermatic 

 Tubes of Pontella and Diapotmus," &c., by John Lubbock, Esq., F.Z.S. ; by the 

 Author. " On the Destructive Powers of Scolytus destructor and Cossus ligni- 

 perda," by Captain C. J. Cox ; by the Author. A specimen of Plusia bractea ; 

 by R. S. Edleston, Esq. Two specimens of a Sciaphila, greatly resembling S. 

 Penziana, from Scotland ; by John Scott, Esq., of Renfrew. An extract of a 

 letter from Mr. Henry Doubleday, announed that if this Sciaphila, upon further 

 examination, were proved to be a distinct species, he intended to describe it. 



R. G. Schofield, Esq., Glen Mohr Villa, Greenwich, and W. Groves, Esq., 12^ 

 Morden Place, Lewisham Road, were balloted for, and elected subscribers to the 

 Society. 



The Secretary announced that the Council had determined to distribute the 

 Society's duplicate specimens of British Lepidopetra among the members. 



Mr. Westwood exhibited a piece of honey-comb, sent to him by a correspondent, 

 in which the queen had laid drone-eggs in worker-cells, which had been enlarged 

 for this purpose. 



Mr. Curtis exhibited some Hymenoptera and Diptera he had received from M. 

 Leon Dufour and Signor Passerini, most of them valuable as typical specimens of 

 species described in the " Annales de la Societe Entomologique de France." In 

 the box, also, was Tryphon nigriceps, Grav., a species new to this country. It was 

 bred by Mr. Foxcroft from cocoons of Trichiosoma lucorum, which he found in 

 Wales. Mr. Curtis remarked that in 1828 he had bred Tryphon rufus from the 

 cocoon of his Trichiosoma pratense, the larvae of which he found in a damp mea- 

 dow, near Ambleside, in the previous year, on a plant he did not remember ; it cer- 

 tainly was not whitethorn, but he thought a spiraea or some herbaceous plant. The 

 Tryphon rufulus of Stephens is the male of T. rufus. These species, from the form 

 of the petiole, belong decidedly to the genus Mesoleptus, which Gravenhorst hints 

 at in his work ; but the multitude of exceptions to the characters of the genera 

 proposed in the systematic tables, show how imperfect the latter are, and how diffi- 

 cult it is to study the Ichneumonidae. 



Mr. Stevens exhibited two specimens of the very rare British longicorn beetle, 

 Pogonocherus fasciculatus, taken by Mr. Foxcroft, in the Black Forest, Perthshire, 

 and the new Noctiluca from Scotland ; but being a female, he had not been able to 

 determine the species with certainty. 



Mr. Douglas exhibited specimens of the scarce moth, Hyponomenta irrorellus, 

 reared by Mr. W. Kirby, of Wandsworth, from larvae found feeding upon Euonymus 

 Europaeus ; and Mr. Stainton exhibited some of the cocoons. 



