228 Linnean Society. [February 4, 



January 21, 1845. 



R. Brown, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



John Daniel Vittoria Packman, Esq., M.D., and Edward Frederick 

 Leeks, Esq., were elected FeUows. 



A Note was read, addressed to the Secretary, by John Curtis, Esq., 

 F.L.S. &c., containing the description of a cocoon of the Emperor 

 Moth (SaturniaPavonia-minor), which on being longitudinally divided 

 was found to have internally, in place of the chrj-salis, a series of 

 cells so analogous to those represented by Mr. Curtis in the nine- 

 teenth volume of the Society's 'Transactions,' plate xxxi. fig. 5, as 

 to leave no doubt on his mind that the woolly masses there exhibited 

 are the cocoons of some large South American Bombyx, and that the 

 substance of the caterpUlar has been converted into cells by the larva 

 of the Tenthredinidous insect. But although the theory of the nest 

 there figured having been constructed by an insect of that family is 

 thus set aside as erroneous, it is only to make evident a still greater 

 anomaly in its economy, viz, that its larvae are parasitic. In the 

 present instance Mr. Curtis was unable, after the most rigid scrutiny, 

 to find any vestige of a perfect insect. A dried and broken maggot 

 was all that could be perceived, and its fragments on being put to- 

 gether bore more resemblance to the larvae of the Ichneumonidce than 

 to those of the Tenthredinidce. 



Mr. Curtis states that the cells most analogous to these are those 

 formed by the Microgaster alvearia, which are as regular as those of 

 a honey-comb, and adds that it appears from a notice in the ' Trans- 

 actions of the Entomological Society,' vol. iii. p. 35, that the pupae 

 of the Eggar-moths are also infested by parasitic Ichneumonidce. A 

 sketch of the cocoon of the Emperor Moth and of the cells formed by 

 its parasitic inhabitants accompanied the note. 



Read also, " Some Notes on the Natural History of Norfolk 

 Island," extracted from the papers of Capt. Alexander Maconochie, 

 R.N., late Lieutenant-Governor of the island. 



February 4. 



R. Brown, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



George Robert Gray, Esq., was elected a Fellow. 



