SOCIETIES. 195 



rivillei, Stn., called by the late Mr. Stainton " The lost Pleiad," 

 because originally described in 1750, and not again found before 1870 

 — mining leaves of the grape vine. The name Holocacista, Wlsm. 

 and Drnt., is now proposed for a new genus, Mr. Stainton having 

 placed it in Antispila, Tr., from which it is found to differ materially 

 in neuration, suggesting a more probable alliance with Heliozela, other- 

 wise Tinar/iiia, Stn. Rare British Beetle. — Mr. E. C. Bedwell 

 exhibited examples of the myrmecophilous beetle, Hetaerins ferru- 

 (jineuii, 01., from Boxhill, a species not recorded from Britain for 46 

 years. The species was first captured by Mr. E. W. .Janson, in 1818, 

 at Hampstead, with Formica fusca and F. flava, and again in 1856 

 {Ent. Annual, 1863, p. 113) ; it was also recorded in 1863 {Fnt. 

 Annual, 1857, p. 77) as having been taken by Dr. Power at Wey- 

 bridge with F. rnfa, and by Douglas and Scott near Croydon with 

 F. fian/jiiinea. Ants from North Britain. — Mr. H. St. J. Donisthorpe 

 exhibited (rt) specimens of Formica exsecta {2 and ^ s), several nests 

 of which he had discovered near Aviemore in Invernessshire in May. 

 He pointed out that it had never been recorded from Scotland or North 

 Britain before, and showed a map of the British Isles to illustrate the 

 British distribution of the species. The localities at present known 

 for it are Aviemore, Bewdley in Worcestershire, New Forest, Park- 

 stone, Bournemouth, as far west as Poole, and as far east as Ringwood, 

 Parkhurst Forest, Isle of Wight, Bovey-Tracey in Devonshire, and the 

 Land's End in Cornwall ; also (5) specimens of F. rufa-pratemis, 2 s, 

 ^ s, pseudogynes and micrergates from Nethy Bridge, Invernessshire, 

 and remarked that this was the chief form there. He described the 

 nests, and mentioned that a number of them were being extinguished 

 by the undergrowth. Moss starts to grow round the base of the nests, 

 then " bilberry " and heather, which creep upwards all round the 

 hillock, gradually driving the ants to the summit, and eventually 

 extinguishing the colony. Professor Wheeler, in a paper " On 

 Relations of Ants to Plants," records similar cases in America and 

 Europe, and is of opinion that the colony eventually dies off. Abraxas 

 GRossuLARiATA. — Mr. L. Doucaster exhibited a drawer of Abraxas 

 {irossidariata and its var. lacticolor, illustrating breeding experiments. 

 The various pairings give the following results : — 



(1) Lacticolor 2 xoyossulariata ^ , gives oSsTgving -aU grossulariata. 



(2) Heterozygous firossulariata i and ? paired together, give all g s grossu- 

 lariata, ? s half grossulariata, half lacticolor. 



(3) Lacticolor 5 x heterozygous grossulariata c? , gives equal proportions of 

 grossulariata and lacticolor in both sexes. The variety is thus transferred to the 

 male by this pairing. 



(4) The converse pairing heterozygous grossulariata i xlacticolor tf , gives all 

 J s grossulariata, all ? s lacticolor. 



(5) Lacticolor ? x lacticolor g , gives only lacticolor in both sexes. 



(6) Wild ? X lacticolor s , gives all s s grossulariata, all ? s lacticolor. 



These results show — (1) that lacticolor is a Mendelian recessive to 

 _^jrossi(lariata ; (2) the converse pairings nos. 1 and 6 above, show that 

 wild (?s are homozygous (pure) (jrossnlariata: but wild 2 s are hetero- 

 zygous, bearing recessive lacticolor. They suggest that the sex- 

 determinants also behave as Mendelian characters, femaieness being 

 ■dominant, and that J s are homozygous in respect of sex, 2 s hetero- 

 zygous. New Irish beetle. — Mr. J. R. Tomlin exhibited examples 

 of Micropeplus coelatus, Er., taken on marshy ground last April, near 

 ■Ologhane, co. Kerry, by Dr. Norman Joy and himself, an interesting 



