850 Linncean Society. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



LINNiEAN SOCIETY. 



November 18, 1845. — The Lord Bishop of Norwich, President, in 



the Chair. 



Dr. Lankester exhibited specimens of a Fucus sold in the London 

 shops under the name of " Australian Moss," of which he also fur- 

 nished a brief notice. On referring to Sir W. J. Hooker, Dr. Lan- 

 kester obtained for it the name of F. stiriatus, Turn. ; but a compa- 

 rison with a specimen in the Linnean Herbarium marked F. stiriatus 

 by Mr. Turner himself, and with Mr. Turner's description in the 

 ' Historia Fucorum,' has induced Dr. Lankester to regard the Austra- 

 lian moss as distinct. He believes it to agree better with F. spino- 

 sus, L. It is brought from Swan River, where it grows on rocks 

 washed by the sea, and is composed principally of Lichenin, a form 

 of starch which also constitutes the bulk of such gelatinous plants 

 as Iceland Moss, Carrageen Moss, Ceylon Moss, and the Gelidium 

 used by the Hirundo esculenta in the formation of its nest. Its 

 dietetical and medicinal qualities strongly resemble those of the 

 Carrageen Moss (Chondrus crispus, Lyngb.). 



Read a paper " On the Natural History, Development, and Ana- 

 tomy of the Oil Beetle, Melo'e, more especially Melo'e cicatricosus. 

 Leach." By George Newport, Fellow of the Royal College of Sur- 

 geons, &c. Communicated by the Secretary. 



Mr. Newport commences his paper with the remark, that although 

 the genus Melo'e includes some of the most common insects, scarcely 

 anything has yet been ascertained respecting their ceconomy, which, 

 hitherto, has remained one of the most difficult unsolved problems 

 in the natural history of the Articulata. Many naturalists, more 

 particularly Goedart, Frisch and DeGeer, have well described the 

 perfect insect, and have even given detailed observations on the ovi- 

 position of the female and the early stage of the larva, but they have 

 invariably failed to carry their inquiries further, and have been quite 

 unacquainted with the adult larva and the nymph, as well as with 

 the early stage of the imago. This deficiency in our knowledge of 

 the history of these common insects is attributed to two causes — 

 first, the anomalous habits of the insect in its earliest stages ; 

 and secondly, the little credit that has been given to the state- 

 ments of former observers, whose accounts Mr. Newport verifies in 

 almost every particular. 



Mr. Newport commenced his observations on the habits of Melo'e 

 about fifteen years ago ; but although he succeeded at that time in 

 rearing the larva from the egg, as had been done by Goedart and 

 DeGeer, and soon afterwards obtained the full-grown larva, the 

 nymph and the imago, before it left its cell, he has never been able 

 to obtain the larva in a stage intermediate between its earliest and 

 its full-grown condition; and on this account he has delayed to 

 publish a statement of what he already knew of the natural history 

 of these singular insects. 



