164 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



hundred and seventy-four species are enumerated in the local list of 

 Lepidoptera, which is admitted to be incomplete, and it is proposed to 

 publish supplementary lists in each succeeding year. In his address, 

 the president (Rev. A. M. Moss) deals chiefly with the work of the 

 Society, but in his opening remarks he refers to the progress of ento- 

 mology during the latter years of the nineteenth century. We are 

 pleased to find that the finances are in a flourishing condition, the 

 cash balance at the close of the past year being almost twice as large 

 as that brought forward from the previous year. So far, not much 

 beyond field-work and matters directly connected therewith have been 

 attempted, but these have been well done. 



Transactions of the City uf London Entomological and Natural History 

 Society /or the year 1900. Pp. 74. London Institution, E.G. 1901. 

 The entomological papers are: — " Secondary sexual characters in 

 British Coleoptera," by Mr. H. Heasler " ; " Re -classification of the 

 Lepidoptera," by Mr. W. J. Kaye ; " A few Days at Fusio," by 

 Dr. T. A. Chapman (with notes on the Geometrids by Mr. L. B. Prout). 

 A further instalment of the lepidopterous " Fauna of the London 

 District," bringing the subject up to the end of Geometridae, is also 

 given. The President's address, it must be added, is exceedingly 

 interesting reading, and we heartily commend it to the notice of those 

 who are not, as yet, students in the advanced school of entomology. 

 The various matters referred to in the " Reports of Meetings " are of 

 the usual instructive character. 



Lepidoptera. — A. G. Mayer carried 449 cocoons of Callosmnia prome- 

 thea from Massachusetts to Loggerhead Key (oft" the Florida coast, many 

 hundred miles south of the southernmost range of the species), and 

 experimented on the way in which the emerged females attract the 

 males. Males do not come to females in hermetically sealed glass 

 boxes, though they congregate about boxes which do not admit of a 

 sight of the" female, but which allow odours from the female to escape 

 to^the outer air. They will seek out such boxes even when the vapour 

 of carbon bisulphide is escaping from the box, together with such 

 odorous material as the female may produce. Females thirty to sixty 

 hours old are much more attractive to males than young females five 

 to ten hours old. Virgins are somewhat more attractive than fertilized 

 females of the same age. The sense-organs thus stimulated are the 

 antenna}, for when these are covered with impervious materials, the 

 males no longer seek the females. If the eyes of a male are covered 

 over with Brunswick black to prevent sight, he will still mate normally 

 if placed near a female. The wings of the females are reddish blue, 

 those of the males darker; yet, if these be interchanged (by means of 

 glue), no apparent disadvantage in mating is sufiered by either. These 

 and other similar observations lead the author to conclude that the 

 sexes pay no attention to the appearance of their partners, and that the 

 dark colouration of the male has not been brought about through 

 sexual selection on the part of the female.—" On the Mating Instinct 

 in Moths," ' American Naturalist,' 1900, pp. 674-5, ex ' Psyche,' ix. 

 (1900), pp. 15-20. 



