1874.1 4..5 



cousins will do well if they avoid the vices of their ancestors in the old country ; and 

 they m;iy receive our assurance that the proposed practice, instead of advancing en- 

 tomological science, will, iu the long run, have the opposite effect. 



Entomological Society of Loxdon : 3Iaj/ 4th, 187-1. — Sir S. S. Saunders, 

 President, in the Chair. 



The Entomological Society of the Netherlands presented a finely executed medal 

 struck in honour of Dr. Snellen von VoUcidiovcn on his retirement from the ollice of 

 President, which he had held for twenty years. 



G-. T. Porrltt, Esq., of Uuddersfield (already a Subscriber), and Ilerbert Goss, 

 Esq., of Brighton, were elected Members. 



Mr. Butler exhibited an example of Vanessa lo bred from the chiysalis, shewing 

 an arrest of development, the wings, &c., on one side being perfect, w^hereas, on the 

 other side, they were aborted and shrivelled, with the pupa-case still attached. He 

 considered this due to the fact of the pupa having become detached during the 

 metamorphosis. 



Mr. W. C. Boyd exhibited a specimen of a Solenohia from St. Leonard's Forest, 

 which was taken with ordinary S. inconspicuella, and might be an albino variety 

 thereof, but of very different appearance from the ordinary form. He also exhibited 

 several leaves of Symphytttm officinale recently gathered, on the under-side of which 

 •was a dense mass of dead or moribund examples of Uraohycentrus suhnubilus nearly 

 covering the surface. AH the insects (with perhaps a single exception) were males. 

 Upon these leaves there were probably several hundred oxaniples. No obvious 

 reason could be suggested for this assemblage. 



Mr. Stainton remarked that there were many such unaccountable instances of 

 a habit of congregating in insects, and reminded the meeting of a fact known to all 

 breeders of Micro-Lepidoptera, concerning the pupation of most species of the 

 genus Nepticula, the larva of which were comparatively solitary, mining in leaves ; 

 but if a number of mined leaves, containing larvte, be collected and placed m a box, 

 it is found that the cocoons arc constructed gregariously between certain of the 

 leaves, with no apparent reason for the preference. He illustrated the habit by 

 comparing the mass of mined leaves in a breeding box to those of a book, between 

 only a few of wrhicli the accumulated pupa) would be found. 



Mr. C. O. Watcrhouse exhibited a beetle of the genus Sinoxylon (BostrychidcBj 

 sent from British Burmah by Dr. Lamprey of the 67th Regiment, wliicli, according 

 to him, had the habit of boring into small stems, and then eating the wood com- 

 pletely round within the bark, so that it became entirely detached by the first gust 

 of wind ; portions of small stems thus si'Vcvcd by tlic btt'tlo accompanied the 

 exhibition. 



Mr. McLaclilan said lie liad to correct an error into which he had fallen when 

 exhibiting at the meeting on the 7th July, 1873 (cf. Ent. Mo. ilag. x. p. 72 ; Proc. 

 Ent. Soc. 1873, p. xxiv.) an insect of the family St/rphidee as gynandromorphous. 

 Mr. Vcrrall, who had examined it, said it was a male of Chrysotoxum fcstivum, and 

 that the apparent asymmetry of the genital apparatus was usual in that species, as 

 also in other Syrp/iidec. 



Part ii. of the Transactions for 187t was on the table. 



