SOOIETiES. 8f 



dasydae, the earliest species have apterous females, while those that 

 emerge later on, are winged in both sexes, the solitary summer species, 

 A. betulan'a, alone having the wings of the $ really well-develoijed. 



Mr. Clark mentioned birch as another plant on which the larvse 

 readily feed, and remarked that, in pupating, the larva frequently 

 descends as much as eighteen inches below the surface of the ground. 



At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London on Feb. 

 7th, 1894:, Mr. Jenner Weir exhibited, on behalf of Mr. J. M. Adye, a 

 specimen of Plusia moneta, which had been captured at Christchurch, 

 Hants, and remai'ked that this species was apparently becoming a 

 permanent resident here ; the food-plant, Aconitum napellus, though 

 rare in England as a wild plant, was very common in gardens. Mr. 

 Weir also exhibited a nearly black specimen of Venilia macidaria, the 

 yellow markings being reduced to a few small dots. Mr. Hamilton 

 Druce exhibited a female specimen of HypQchrysops scintdlans, lately 

 received by him from Mioko, New Ireland. He said that only the 

 male of this species had been as yet described, and read a description 

 of the female. Mr. F. Enock exhibited a nest of the British Trap- 

 door Spider, Atypus picens, recently found near Hastings by Mrs. Enock. 

 Mr. W. F. H. Blandford stated that he had recently o!)tained an 

 additional species of Scolyto-platy pas from Japan, Avhicli, though closely 

 allied to the species he had formerly described, showed a veiy distinct 

 modification of the male pro-sternum. Mr. M. Jacoby exhibited and 

 remarked on a specimen of LepAispa jrygamea, Baly, which was doing 

 much injury to sugar-cane in the Bombay Presidency of India. Mr. 

 G. C. Gliampion stated that he had found an allied species on bamboo. 

 Dr. F. A. Dixey read a paper — which was illustrated by the oxy- 

 hydrogen lantern — " On the Phylogeny of the Pierinae as illustrated 

 by their wing-markings and geographical distribution." Dr. Dixey 

 considers that the wing-markings in Pierinae are reducible to a common 

 plan, the chief features of Avhich are : — (1) two dark bands or series of 

 spots, one marginal and the other sub-marginal : (2) a dark discoidal 

 patch or patches : (3) various yellow or red patches in pre-costal region 

 and at the base of the underside of the hind-wing. The dark series 

 represent, most probably, the remains of an original dark or dusky 

 ground-colour, which has given way, more or less comjDletely, before 

 an invasion of the white or yellow that characterises most of the 

 present-day Pierinae. A consideration of all the evidence attainable 

 seems to bear out the conclusion that the darker colour is, in most cases, 

 the older, and the present geographical distribution of the sub-family 

 confirms, on the whole, the phylogenetic results obtained from the 

 wing- markings as well as from the more specially structural features. 

 Dr. T. A. Chapman read a paper entitled " Some notes on those species 

 of Micro-Lepidoptera, allied to Micropte.ryx, whose larvfB are external 

 feeders, and chiefly on the early stages of Eriocephala calthella," of this 

 we are enabled, by the kindness of the author, to give the following- 

 epitome : 



The family Micro pie vygidae is divisible into two distinct sul)-faniilies 

 which have little in common. The Micropteryges proper (purpurella, itc.) 

 have footless mining larvtvj, pu})£e of a very low type and possessing im- 

 mense active jaws (Plate E, figs. 1 e*e 2), the imagines being without jaws. 

 The Eriocephalae (calthella, &c.) have larva3 that feed externally and tliat 

 are furnisliod with three pairs of true legs and eight pairs of abdominal 

 pro-legs ; their imagines have strong useful jaws, with which they eat 



