ma.] 239 



weather, they are very sweet and attractive, probably more so than those that have 

 been forced out by a hot sun ; and I also think that when first appearing after hyber- 

 nation, or just out of pupa, the moths are far more greedy for food than after they 

 have had one or two good meals ; but certainly the weather has great influence over 

 them, and warm, still nights, such as we had last April, must be very suitable for the 

 great business of depositmg eggs. I quite accidentally met with a case in point before 

 I quite gave up working the sallows. I had tried hard through the evening, and found 

 nothing but a few T. rubricosa, with an occasional gothica, Okea t'accinii, and 

 Eupithecia abbreviata, yet Tceniocampce were still out, for I took them flying now and 

 then ; and I was pondering in no very good humour, on the great problem of how to 

 get at them, when I caught sight of a specimen settled at my feet. On examination, 

 I found it to be a female T. gracilis, busy depositing her eggs in a dead seed-head, 

 apparently of plantain. With the lantern I could distinctly see her ovipositor at 

 work, placing the eggs at the base of the seed-vessels, until the light disturbed her, 

 and she had to be boxed. This put me on a fresh scent, and, in a few minutes, I 

 found a female T. miniosa on an oak twig similarly engaged, and, after an hour's 

 searching, another. Both of these were depositing their eggs in a little heap at the 

 bases of th^' oak buds. 



I spent another evening or two searching for the egg layers, but, although I took 

 another miniosa on the oak, and several more gracilis depositing in seed-heads of 

 Solidago and Stachys, I do not pretend to recommend this plan of collecting as very 

 productive, as that of planting sallow boughs certainly is, since it is so very easy to 

 examine them on all sides, or shake them over the umbrella, which is carried as a 

 matter-of-course for the benefit of the high bushes. 



While on the subject of sallows, I may as well mention that I took several 

 specimens of a scarce beetle, Dryops femoratus, feeding at the bloom. — Chableb G. 

 Babbeit, Haslemere. 



EntomologicaI/ Society of London, Feb. 5th, 1866. — Sir John Lubbock, Bart., 

 F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The President thanked the Society for electing him, after which he handed to 

 Dr. Wallace the Prize awarded him by the Council for his essay on " Ailanthiculture," 

 and announced that the CouncU had determined to renew the offer of prizes on the 

 same conditions as those of last year ; the essays to bo sent in before the 1st of 

 December next, so that the Prizes might be distributed at the Anniversary Meeting. 



Messrs. Guerin-Meneville, of Paris, and C. A. Boheman, of Stockholm, wero 

 elected Honorary Members. 



Mr. D'Orville, of Alphington, sent for exhibition the specimen of Sten-ha sacraria 

 taken by him last autumn (vide Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. 2, p. 115^ ; also some varieties 

 of Lepidoptera, including an enormous example (2" 10'" in expanse of wings) of 

 Vanessa cardui, Hipparchia Tithonus with an additional occllated spot in the anterior 

 wings, Argynnis Selene with the marking much obliterated both above and below, 

 Agrotis scgetum, &c. 



Mr. Stevens exhibited an example of the rare and remarkable Fapilio Scmperi, 

 from Mindanao. 



Professor Westwood mentioned that having confined a i^air of the Ixodes 

 exhibited by Major Cox iu February last, in a glass tube, ho IouikI shortly afterwards 



