18P9.] 99 



to suppose, as this correspondent had done, that the larvae burrowed in the salt for 

 the sake of obtaining food ; he himself had on various occasions called attention to 

 the depredations of Dermestes vulpinus, arising from a habit the larvse had of 

 burrowing through different materials in oi'der to find a shelter in which to undergo 

 pupation, though this was the first time that salt, as a substance attacked in that 

 way, had come under his notice. Mr. J. J. Walker, in remarking upon the exhibit, 

 said he believed one of the earliest references to injuries caused by Dermestes was to 

 be found in '' The Last Voyage of Thomas Candish," published in Hakluyt's Col- 

 lection of Voyages, where there was an interesting, if somewhat exaggerated, account 

 of certain worms which, bred from a stock of dried Penguins, proceeded to devour 

 tlie whole of the ship's stores, and then to gnaw into the timbers, creating great 

 alarm lest the ship should spring a leak. The voyage took place in the year 1593 ; 

 and the worms, he thought, could only have been the larvae of Dermestes vulpinus, 

 or some closely allied species. Dr. T. A. Chapman read a "Contribution to the life- 

 history of Micropteryx {EriocephalaJ allionella, Hiibn." 



3Iarch 1st, 1899.— The President in the Chair. 



Mr. G. J. Arrow, of the British Museum (Natural History) ; Mr. G. B. Chal- 

 craft, of Leicester; Mr. C. E. Collins, of Stoneham, Calcot, Reading; Mr. Percy 

 W. Farmborough, F.Z.S., of Lower Edmonton ; Mr. Montague Gunning, of Nar- 

 borough, Leicester; Mr. Harry Moore, of 12, Lower Road, Rotherhithe ; and Mr. 

 H. S. Woolley, of 7, Park Row, Greenwich ; were elected Fellows of the Society. 



Mr. J. J. Walker exhibited a specimen of a rare British beetle, Quedius 

 longicornis, Ktz., recently taken at Cobham Park, Kent. Mr. M. Jacoby, a Halticid 

 beetle from Sumatra, of the genus Chalcenus, Westw., and called attention to the 

 remarkable position of its eyes, these organs being placed at the end of two very 

 distinct lateral processes of tlie head, somewhat resembling the stalked eyes of crabs 

 and other Crastacea. He said this character was peculiar to the male sex, and was 

 very exceptional in Coleoptera, not being met with in any other genus of Phytophaga, 

 and only occurring in a few Anthribidce, and in isolated cases in one or two other 

 families. He also showed a beetle from Peru, which was sent to him in a collection 

 of Phytophaga, and which, superficially, was very like certain members of that 

 group ; but from the structure of the antennae and other characters, it appeared to 

 be out of place in the Phytophaga, and probably belonged to some other family. 

 Mr. Gahan remarked that this beetle, to whatever family it might prove to belong, 

 was very interesting, not only from its structural peculiarities, but also from the fact 

 that it had the colour and markings characteristic of certain species of Galerucidce, 

 a family to which it undoubtedly was not in any way closely related. This fact 

 seemed to show that it was a mimetic form, and thus helped to explain the present 

 obscurity surrounding its affinities. Mr. J. J. Walker read a short extract from the 

 account given in " The Last Voyage of Thomas Candish," to which he had referred 

 in the course of his remarks on Mr. Blandford's exhibit at the previous meeting. 

 Mr. G. J. Arrow contributed a paper " On Sexual Dimorphism in Beetles of the 

 Family RutelidcB," and sent for exhibition a series, including both sexes, of six 

 species of Anomala, selected to illustrate the subject of his paper. — J. J. Walkep.;' 

 and C. J. Gahax, Ron. Secretaries. 



