370 Liunean Society. [M^y ~, 



and contractile forms of growth in the tissues themselves. All that 

 is known with certainty is, that it is through the direct agency of 

 the muscles that the form of body of the insect is rapidly altered at 

 the period of the metamorphoses, and that the operation of these is 

 accelerated or retarded by physical influences. The mode in which 

 the muscles operate in effecting the changes was then pointed out, 

 and the altered proportions of diiferent parts of the body after the 

 change was shown to depend on the greater or less extent to which 

 the contra,ction of the muscles of different segments is carried. 



The result of these altered proportions in the tegument of an in- 

 sect that is changing to the form of jDupa or nymph, as in Meloe, is 

 a rapid re-induction of the forces of growth in the appendages, the 

 future wings and legs, which become greatly elongated, at and im- 

 mediately after the change. These alterations of form are accom- 

 panied as a last result by changes in the intimate structure of the 

 tegument, a consolidation of a large portion of it, and the formation 

 of the dermo-skeleton of the imago. 



May 2. 

 The Lord Bishop of Norwich, President, in the Chair. 



M. J. Decaisne was elected a Foreign Member, and John Fraser, 

 Esq., an Associate. 



The Society passed a Resolution expressive of its deep regret at 

 receiving, at the moment when about to ballot on the Certificate of 

 Prof. J. G. Zuccarini as a Foreign Member, the intelligence of his 

 lamented death. 



Read a memoir " On the Anatomy and affinities of Pteronarcys 

 regalis, Newm." By George Newport, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. &c. &c. 



Mr. Newport commenced by stating that the existence of a 

 winged insect with branchial organs for resjjiration is so anomalous 

 a condition of life, that himself as well as others at first regarded 

 the specimen he had obtained rather as an accidental instance of 

 incomplete development than a normal condition. He found how- 

 ever, one omparing his specimen, preserved in spirit, with other dried 

 specimens in the cabinets of the British Musuem, that this was not 

 the case, as evidences of branchiae are to be found in the whole of 

 the dried specimens of the genus in that collection. 



Having waited some years since obtaining this specimen, in hopes 



