THE society's NOTE-BOOKS. 43 



appear to belong to the class called by Professor Gulliver " short 

 prismatic crystals." I am not, however, quite sure that they are 

 crystals of Lime-salts, as they polarise somewhat differently. 

 The embryo in the Palm is very minute, and the great mass of 

 the seed is made up of albumen — using the word in its botanical, 

 and not in its chemical, sense. 



Messrs. Beeby and Parsons. 



ZOOLOGICAL. 



Soldier-Beetle, Telephorus (PI. 4.). — There are two beetles 

 of this family, very commonly found in June — one red, the other 

 with steel-blue elytra ; — the latter is much the commoner of the 

 two. It is found amongst grass, stinging-netdes, hedges, etc., 

 and, I believe, it is vegetarian in its feeding.* The mouth 

 (PI. 4, upper half) is rather peculiar, from its four palpi ending in 

 triangular knobs. The labium and labrum both exhibit traces 

 of the original form of pairs of limbs. The upper — i.e.^ the 

 inner — surface of the labium has a brush of hairs. The maxillae 

 are quite covered with hair, and appear to have no sharp claws : 

 I believe that this is rather unusual amongst beetles. It seems 

 that the maxillae are the homologues of two pairs of limbs, each 

 maxilla being two legs amalgamated ; this, however, does not 

 appear very plainly in the drawing. It is very instructive to 

 prepare a series of mouths dissected and laid out as in the 

 drawing, w^hich is made from a slide having the various parts 

 mounted and laid out in the position figured. 



The folding of a beetle's wing is to me always an interesting 

 problem. In the present instance the douMing is but simple. I 

 do not know the right names of the veins in the wing, but I 

 have named them just for convenience sake in describing them 

 (PI. 4, lower half). The folding seems to be effected thus : — 

 The lappet, or anal areolet, is turned up to the rest of the wing. 

 The radial and the cubital veins are brought up close to the sub- 

 costal (r, cu^ and ^), the intervening portion of the wing doubling 



* The following remarks, taken from Westwood's ' ' Classification of Insects, " 

 vol. I., page 256, will serve to show how careful we should be in forming our 

 deductions: — "They (the Telephori) are very voracious, feeding upon other 

 insects, and devouring such of their own species as they can subdue ; the females 

 not even sparing their mates. These circumstances were, indeed, doubted by 

 Ohvier, but they have been since authenticated, and 1" (J. O. Westwood) " have 

 myself been often a witness of their voracious dispositions." 



TuFFEN West, 



