2^8 LUcccuiber, ISyti. 



one-third of the species of European Dragon-flies from the Departement de I'lndre, 

 France, sent to liim by Mons. Rene Martin. Two or three of the species had been 

 reared in an aquarium, but the identification of most of them has been secured by 

 finding the imago drying its wings in the immediate vicinity of the cast skin. Mr. 

 R. Adkin, a long series of Acidalia niarginepunctata taken on the sea-coast at East- 

 bourne, Sussex, during the past eight summers. The series included examples of a 

 bone-coloured form with slightly indicated transverse markings ; others much dusted 

 with black scales, giving them a deep grey tone, with well developed inarkings ; and 

 sundry forms intermediate between the two ; also three taken this year, in which 

 the whole of the wings, with the exception of a pale submarginal line, are densely 

 covered with black scales, giving them a similar appearance to the so-called " black " 

 forms that are found among some of the species of Boarmia and Tephrosia. Mr. 

 Horace St. John Donisthorpe, a female specimen of Dytiscxis circumcinctus, Ahr., 

 with elytra resembling in form those of the male. He said the specimen had been 

 taken in Wicken Fen in August last. Mr. Tutt, a specimen of Mellinia ocellaris, 

 recently taken near Southend, together with a specimen of M. gilvago for compari- 

 son ; also four specimens of Argyresthia Atmoriella, taken by Mr. Atmore last June 

 at Lynn, Norfolk. He also exhibited a pupa-case of Thymelicus lineola from the 

 Essex salt marshes. He drew attention to the structural characters exhibited by it, 

 and pointed out that it differed markedly from the pupa of Pamphila comma 

 exhibited at the last Meeting. Mr. Tutt also exhibited a long series of a Melampias, 

 which he had captured at Le Lautaret in the Dauphine Alps, at an elevation of 

 7000 — 8000 feet. He observed that the specimens exhibited were peculiar in some 

 very important particulars, combining some of the characteristics of Erebia 

 (^Melampias) Melampus and M. Pharte. He said his attention had been first drawn 

 to this form by some fine examples captured by Dr. Chapman and himself on Mont 

 de la Saxe in 1895. Compared with the Tyrolean examples of M. Melampus, this 

 form showed a tendency to a lengthening of the fore-wings and to an obsolescence 

 of the black dots, thus approaching M. Pharte, but the females presented none of the 

 typical characters of the female of M. Pharte. On the whole, he felt satisfied that 

 the Mont de la Saxe specimens were a form of M. Melampus. Mr. Elwes observed 

 that though all the continental butterflies had been so long studied by European 

 Entomologists, he did not think the form exhibited by Mr. Tutt had been hitherto 

 noticed. He considered that Mr. Tutt had made out his case, and he agreed in the 

 conclusion at which he had arrived. Mr. McLachlan, Herr Jacoby, and Professor 

 Meldola continued the discussion. Mr. E. Ernest Q-reen, a typical specimen of 

 ISphyra omicronaria, together with what he believed to be a remarkable melanic 

 variety of the same species, taken by Dr. Dudley Wright at Pegwell Bay, near 

 Eamsgate, in September last. Some of the Fellows present, after an examination 

 of the specimen, expressed an opinion that it was a variety of an Acidalia, and not 

 of Ephyra omicronaria. Mr. Q-oss stated that Mr. Harry Fisher, the botanist to 

 the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition, had returned to England. He hoped that he 

 would have been present at the Meeting to exhibit a few minute Diptera and other 

 insects which he had collected in Franz Josef Land. Mr. McLachlan made some 

 remarks on insects and flowers in high latitudes, and Mr. Elwes, Sir George Hamp- 

 Bon, and Professor Meldola also commented on the subject. — H. Goss, Hon. Sec. 



END OF VOL. VII (Second Sekies). 



