1900.] 93 



previous Meeting. Mr. Champion, a large number of Coleoptera 'collected by Dr. 

 Chapman, Mr. S. Edwards and himself in July last, at Fusio in the Val Maggia, Ma- 

 cugnaga in the Val Anzasca, and on the Simplon Pass ; he called attention to the 

 great variation in colour of one or two common species of the Chrysomelid genus 

 Orina, and said he believed that the forms known as O. cacalice, Schrank, O. sped- 

 osissima, Scop., and under other names, all belonged to one extremely variable 

 species. Prof. T. Hudson Beare, specimens of Dinoderus minutus, Fab., obtained 

 from a bamboo basket in his house at Richmond ; they were specifically identical 

 with the Dinoderus substriatus of Stephens. Mr. H. Donisthorpe exhibited a larva 

 case of Ciythra quadripunctata taken from a nest of the red wood-ant, Formica 

 rufa ; lie commented upon the unsatisfactory state of our knowledge as to the food- 

 habits of the larvce of Ciythra, and said he believed the larvse fed upon the eggs of 

 the ant. The President remarked that there was a species of Microdon of which 

 the pupa case had an obvious similarity to the larva case of Ciythra, and was, he 

 believed, found in the nest of the same species of ant. Mr. Gahan mentioned, in 

 connection with the genus Ciythra, that these beetles possess a stridulating organ 

 on the mesonotum, not along the middle as in Longicorns and the Megalopidce, but 

 towards the lateral edges, and consisting of two widely separated striated areas over 

 which the edge of the pronotum moves ; the stridulating areas were present he said 

 in nearly all the genera of Clythridce, and might almost be regarded as a character- 

 istic of the family. The fact that these beetles stridulate was apparently known to 

 Darwin, who, in the " Descent of Man," erroneously stated that the stridulating 

 area was situated on the pygidium. — C. J. GrAHAN, Son. Secretary. 



March 7^/*. — The President in the Chair. 



Mr. H. Rowland-Brown, M.A., was elected into the Council and as Joint Secre- 

 tary in the place of Mr. J. J. Walker, R.N., who had resigned. 



Prof. Christopher Aurivillius, of Stockholm, and Prof. Frederick Moritz Brauer, 

 of Vienna, were elected Honorary Fellows : and Mr. W. Drury, of Rocquaine, West 

 Hill Park, Woking ; the Rev. W. Westropp Flemyng, of Coolfin, Portlaw, Water- 

 ford ; and Prof Percy G-room, M.A., F.L.S., of the Royal Indian Engineering 

 College, Cooper's Hill ; were elected ordinary Fellows of the Society. 



Mr. C. G. Barrett exhibited a series of varieties of SpUosoma dor.salix from 

 South Africa, showing variation in some degree parallel with that of S. lubricipeda 

 in Great Britain. Mr. G W. Kirkaldy, several Rhynchota of economic interest 

 from the United States, Ceylon, and British Central Africa, among them being the 

 new ALgaleus bechuana. Kirk., from Africa, which attacks coffee, and Farlatoria 

 victrix, Ckll., from PhcBnix, Arizona, found on date palms ; the last named Coccid 

 was originally introduced from Egypt, and all attempts at eradication had hitherto 

 failed ; he also showed a series of thirteen colour-varieties of the oriental Scutellerine 

 Cantao ocellatu/i, Thunb., and examples of Distantidea vedda (a new genus and 

 species of Lybantinn) from Ceylon, in which the rostrum was very long, extending 

 as far as to the apex of the abdomen. Papers were communicated by Mr. W. L. 

 Distant on " Undescribed genera and species belonging to the Rhynchotal family 

 PentatomidcB," and by Mr. G. J. Arrow " On Pleurostic Lamellicorns from Grenada 

 and St. Vincent (West Indies)." Mr. C. J. Gahan read a paper on "Stridulating 

 organs in Coleoptera," in which he remarked that one of the best accounts of them 



