240 fMarch, 1860 



a brood of yonng ; these died, and after them the parents, but at the present time 

 the tube was full of minute young (in the hexapod condition) apparently of another 

 brood ; the creatures had been kept entirely without food. He also exhibited a 

 remarkable larva with external branchiae, which he considered to pertain to 

 Tiimla replicata, and remarked that it had been figured by De Geer. 



Mr. Saunders exhibited a long series of Heliconice from Cayenne, which varied 

 to a very great extent, although all from one locality ; he considered that they 

 might probably be of two species. 



Mr. Bates remarked that these examples were apparently intermediate between 

 H. Melpomene, H. Thelxiope, and H. Vesta. He had found these three species 

 together on the Amazons, but observed no indications of their interbreeding. The 

 variable form exhibited by Mr. Saunders was peculiar to the Guiana mainland, and 

 he considered all the specimens to pertain to one species, which illustrated the eflfeots 

 of some conditions analogous to that of domestication, as exhibited in the cat, which 

 was originally tabby-coloured, but, as was weU known, varied now to such an extent, 

 that it was not unusual that in a litter of kittens not two were alike. He was of 

 opinion that a species would adjust itself to change, in the local conditions, and 

 thus originate what was considered a distinct species. A discussion ensued, in 

 which Prof. Westwood, Mr. Pascoe, Dr. Wallace, and others took part, Dr. Wallace 

 remarking on the fact that Bomhyx ricini and B. Cynthia, although differing 

 remarkably in all their stages, feeding on very different plants, and natives of 

 different countries, would constantly hybridise ; the hybrids being fertile not only 

 among themselves, but also with either of their original parents ; the weaker larvas 

 resembling the one species, while the stronger were more Hke the other. 



Mr, Smith stated that having at a previous meeting expressed doubt as to 

 whether the ticking known as the " death-watch" was produced, as was commonly 

 supposed, by insects of the genus Anohium, he had received a letter on the subject 

 from Mr. Doubleday, in which he remarked that he had repeatedly observed that 

 the Anolium caused the sound by raising itself on its posterior legs and striking 

 the head and underside of the thorax against some substance ; he had confined the 

 insect in a pill-box, and, by making a similar sound, had caused it to answer him. 



Dr. Wallace remarked that the roof and aisles of a church at Colchester were 

 destroyed by A. tessellatum, and noticed that they chiefly affected the side facing 

 the south. 



Mr. Stainton announced the death of Senator von Heyden, of Frankfort ; he 

 mentioned also that he had received a letter from Mr. Wollaston from the Cape de 

 Verd Islands, in which Mr. Wollaston stated that in two islands alone ho had col- 

 lected 150 species of Coleoptera, 



Professor Westwood called attention to the remarkable gynandromorphous 

 example of Dytiscus latissimus figured in the new part of the Stettin Entomologische 

 Zeitung (vol. 27, part 1-3), and described by Dr. Altum. 



Mr. McLachlan noticed also a record in the same part (p. 132), by Herr Teich, 

 of Riga, of a curious gynandromorphous example of Argynnis Papliia; the left side 

 male and the right female ; the former being coloured, as in the normal condition 

 of the species, whereas the latter presented the variety known as Valesina. 



Mr. llewitson communicated a paper on 17 new species of Hesperia, 



