100 



tions without preparation, change colour or shrivel, owing to changes which take 

 place in their contents. 



From the time of Swammerdam upwards numerous attempts have been made 

 to ensure a permanence of the natural aspect of these interesting objects, but I am 

 not aware that anything like success has been achieved. Swammerdam's plan was 

 the following: — Having first squeezed out the contents through a small punctured 

 aperture in the shell, to inflate and re-fill, by means of a very fijie glass blowpipe 

 with oil of spike, in which resin had been previously dissolved. Of course if the 

 blowpipe were heated, or the operation conducted in a hot atmosphere, coloured 

 wax, tallow, or cocoa-butter, would answer the same purpose ; but, inasmuch, as 

 opaque objects are not so readily examinable under the microscope, and as, more- 

 over, the form, structure, and sculpture of the shell hold the chief places in the 

 examination of these objects, it has been considered best that the shell alone should be 

 mounted for the purpose ; a mode of preparation which can be carried out with 

 great facility,as follows : — Take a piece of leather, or other suitable substance, and 

 having punched out a hole in it, fix it to the surface of a piece of glass ; into the 

 cell thus formed place the shell, and having covered it over with a disc of thin 

 Venetian glass, ticket, and the mount is ready for the microscope. 



END OF "egg state." 



ENTOMOT.oaiCAL SOCIETY OF LoNDON, August 1st, 1864. — Rev. Hamlet Clark, 

 M.A., F.L.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Staiaton exhibited, on behalf of Mr. Bond, some specimens of a new British 

 Gelechia, 0. pinguinella, which had been taken near London on the trunks of poplars. 

 Mr. Stainton observed that the species was very common in various localities on the 

 continent, and that he had often felt surprised that it should not have occurred in 

 this country. 



Professor Westwood called attention to a specimen of the larva of Zenzera 

 jEsculi which had been beautifully preserved by Mr. Baker of Cambridge. The 

 Chairman remarked that Professor Westwood spoke of the insect as Zenzera, whereas 

 he had generally heard it called Zevzera; on which Professor Westwood stated that 

 Zetizera was the name first used by Latreille, and was not only the etymologically 

 correct word, but also the oldest designation, Zevzera being a misprint for Zeyzera. 



Mr. McLachlan exhibited a specimen of Libellula Striolata, which at a first 

 glance appeared beautifully spotted with red, owing to a number of red acari having 

 attached themselves to the nervures near the base of the wings, both on the upper 

 and lower surfaces; the specimen exhibited was from the neighbourhood of 

 Montpelier. 



Mr. Bond exhibited a specimen of the rare knot-horn, Nyctegretis Achatinella, 

 which had been taken at Yarmouth by Mr. Thomas Brown. 



Mr. Weir exhibited an albino variety of ^Msebm hipunctaria, taken near Lewes. 



The following papers were then read : — 



Descriptions of Phytophaga, by J. S. Baly ; 



Descriptions of four new butterflies by W. C. Hewitson ; and 



Notes on the genus Hydaticus, of Leach, with descriptions of some new 

 species, by the Rev, Hamlet Clark. 



