159 



II. Mitteilungen aus Museen, Instituten usw. 



Linnean Society of New South Wales. 



Abstract of Proceedings, June 29tli, 1904. — 1) Descriptions of Austra- 

 lian Micro-Lepidoptera. XVIIl. Gelechiadae. By E. Meyrick, B.A., F.R.S., 

 Corresponding Member, This family forms a smaller proportion of the 

 Tineina in the Australian region than it does in Europe, amounting perhaps 

 to about 12 per cent, of the whole. As, however, the species are often retired 

 in habit, small, inconspicuous, and rather difficult to study, they have been 

 much neglected, and may perhaps prove eventually to be more relatively 

 numerous than they seem at present. Fortunately only seven species were 

 known to Walker, others assigned by him to this family being wrongly 

 attributed. Mr, O. Lower has in late years described some number; he has 

 very kindly transmitted specimens of all these (frequently the actual types) 

 for examination, so that the author has been able to as certain positively 

 their identity in all cases; this assistance has been most valuable. Much 

 material in specimens and notes of localities has also been received from 

 him, as well as from Mr. G. Lyell, the late Mr. G. Barnard, and other 

 collectors whose records are duly acknowledged in their place. Altogether 

 274 species are here recorded, of which 207 are now described as new. Of 

 this total 85 species, or not much less than a third, are included in the 

 endemic genus Protolechia ^ but no other strictly endemic genus attains any 

 large size, though 40 out of the 55 genera are endemic, so far as is known. 



— 2) A Variable Galactan Bacterium. By E,. Greig Smith, D.Sc, Macleay 

 Bacteriologist to the Society. A bacterium isolated from the tissues of a 

 species of Strychnos grew on gelatine as brittle moruloid colonies which 

 contained an insoluble gum. Cultivation at 30° C. caused the organism to 

 rapidly lose the faculty of forming this insoluble gum. A soluble gum was 

 produced instead, and the colonies in consequence became gummy and 

 otherwise uncharacteristic. The gums from both forms of bacteria were galac- 

 tans and difi"ered only in solubility. M. Steel exhibited an unusually per- 

 fect series of the galls of both sexes of Brachyscelis pedunculata^ Fuller. 



Abstract of Proceedings, July 27th, 1904. — 1) Notes on Australian 

 Coccidae ex Coll. W, W. Froggatt, with Descriptions of new Species, No, L 

 By E, Ernest Green, F,E,S., Government Entomologist of Ceylon. (Com- 

 municated by W. W. Froggatt, F.L.S.). A species of Chionaspis found 

 upon the undersurface of the leaves of Eucalyptus tereticornis, Sm. , and the 

 Nut-grass Coccid, a species of Antonina, are described as new. The latter 

 may be classed with the few beneficial species of Coccids, as it is credited 

 with destroying the host-plant [Cyperus rotundus, Linn.), a most objectio- 

 nable weed, over a large area of the Hunter River flats, A.F.W. Some 

 critical observations upon Mytilaspis sjnnifera^ Mask., and the indenti ty of 

 Chaetococcusj Mask., with Antonina^ Sign., are recorded. — 2) Three New 

 Generic Names for Mollusca. By Captain F. W, Hutton, F.R.S. The author 

 finds, through the publication of the 'Index Zoologicus', that the following 

 generic names, published by him for Land Mollusca, have been forestalled: 



— Pyrrha, by Cabanis in Aves, 1849; Carthaea, by Walker in Lepidoptera, 



