1866.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 31 



Two species (four specimens) of Bryozoa have also been received 

 from Mr. Angas, who collected them in S. Australia, two of them 

 belonging to the genus Retepora. The difference between the 

 hardparts of a bryozoon and those of a true coral was explained ; 

 and it was shewn that the stony cells of bryozoa are destitute 

 of the radiating calcareous partitions usually seen in the cells of 

 corals. 



An interesting named series of crustaceans from the Mediter- 

 ranean, has been received from Mr. Westwood, the Pro- 

 fessor of Zoology in the University of Oxford. They formed a 

 part of the fine collection presented by the late Rev. F. W. Hope 

 to that University. All of them belong to the order Decapoda, 

 in which order all the stalk-eyed Crustacea of which it is composed 

 have the whole of the thoracic segments united, with the head, 

 into a single mass, " incased in a common shell, with no traces of 

 segmentary division." Their branchial organs are inclosed within 

 a cavity on each side of the cephalo-thorax, and their true tho- 

 racic legs are nearly always ten in number, whence the name of the 

 order. One of the species, Scyllarus Arctus, belongs to the ma- 

 crurous or long-tailed division of the Decapods, a division to 

 which Shrimps, Prawns and Lobsters belong. The remainder of 

 the twenty-six species are brachyurous or short-tailed decapods, 

 and are mostly peculiar kinds of crab. 



A beautiful series of exotic insects has been presented by Prof. 

 Westwood. Among the most noticeable of the beetles are seven 

 species from Tropical Africa, collected by some of the members of 

 Dr. Livingstone's expedition. Of these, Tcxius Megerki is a 

 fine large carnivorous ground beetle, belonging to the family 

 Carabidse. A fine pair of the rare Dynastes taurus has been 

 received, a genus which is allied to the well known Hercules beetle 

 of Brazil, and belongs to the family Dynastidae of the lamellicornes. 

 Other examples of the lamellicorn beetles from Tropical Africa are 

 a pair of the large Rhinoceros beetle, Oryctes boas, and of 

 Copris gigas, an insect not very dissimilar to the sacred beetle 

 (Ateuchus saccr) of the Egyptians. The Gnathocera Iris, a bril- 

 liant green cockchafer, aud the G. suturalis, another cockchafer 

 with black longitudinal stripes on a light olive green ground, are 

 also representatives of the lamellicornes of Tropical Africa. There 

 remain two specimens of a Calandra, a large and curious weevil, also 

 Tetrognatha gigas, from the same country, which is a large longi- 

 corn species. Attention was called to a series of Buprestidse, 



