314 



psrLJJi:. 



[July — September 1SS5. 



nest similar to the one now exhibited attached 

 to a pod [ear] of maize. 



Mr. T. R. Billups stated that he had fre- 

 quently witnessed encounters between the 

 larva of Ocypits olens and eartliworms, and 

 had kept Carabus aiiratiis alive on nothing 

 but earthworms for more than five months. 



Dr. D : Sharp remarked that Cybister roe- 

 seli had been kept alive from five to seven 

 years by being fed on earthworms once or 

 twice a day ; he thought .... that earthworms 

 were the favorite food of carnivorous coieo- 

 ptera. 



Mr. W. L. Distant exhibited an ordinary 

 specimen of Cilix spinulii, and remarked that 

 though its peculiar position when at rest had 

 been described, it had not been noticed that 

 it thus perfectly resembled a species of the 

 homopterous genus Flata. . . . He further 

 remarked that the term " mimicry," recently 

 loosely-used, could not be applied here, as 

 the moth could hardly be considered to 

 mimic a Flala which did not occur in our 

 fauna. 



Mr. E. A. Fitch called attention to the 

 great resemblance that Cilix apinula bore to 

 the excrement of a bird, when at rest on the 

 upper side of a leaf, as was its common 

 practice. 



Mr. A. G. Butler remarked on the great 

 similarity sometimes existing between lepi- 

 dopterous and homopterous insects : he had 

 lately described a lithosiid allied to Nmia- 

 ria, from New Holland, which he certainly 

 thought at first was a homopteron ; the re- 

 semblance was so striking that he had named 

 the genus Homofsyclic ; the hairs along the 

 costa were very striking, and he quite be- 

 lieved this w-as a case of mimicry. Qiiite 

 lately he had found a second specimen in the 

 [British] museum collection, which had been 

 put away in the supplementary cabinet as 

 not a lepidopterous insect. 



Mr. F. P. Pascoe, in connection with the 

 above, exhibited a large and pretty chalcid 

 (which Mr. Fitch determined as one of the 

 cleonymidae). \s\\\<:\\ hf liad lately captured 



at St. Heller's, quite thinking it was a hemip- 

 teron ; when running it had its wings over- 

 lapping in true bug fashion. 



Miss E. A. Ormerod exhibited a piece of 

 leather perforated by oes/ridae^ the punctures 

 being more than one to the square inch [16 

 to the square decimetre]. Miss Ormerod 

 called attention to what is known of the life- 

 history of our bot-flies, and especially of the 

 warble-fly {Ilypoderma bovis), and alluded to 

 the practical necessity of attempting to lessen 

 the amount of injury occurring both to the 

 cattle themselves and to the hides. 



Messrs. W. L. Distant, E. A. Fitch, and 

 C : V. Riley made further remarks upon the 

 same subject. 



Mr. .\. Wailly exhibited a large box of bred 

 lepidoptera, especially of silk-producing bom- 

 byces. Amongst them . . . were larvae hy- 

 brid between Samia cctropia and 5. ceanothi 

 (californica) ; the parents had paired with- 

 out forcing in any way, but no pairing 

 between the sexes of 5. ceanothi could be 

 obtained; he believed these larvae would 

 produce 5. glo-ocri. . . ■ 



3 SiiPT. 1S84.— Mr. W. F. ICirby, on be- 

 half of Mr. A. Wailly, who was present as a 

 visitor, exhibited . . . cocoonsof Cenitociim/ia 

 imperialis, and Mr. Wailly said that his sus- 

 picions that this larva was a cannibal had 

 been fully verified by Mr. E. F. llitchings, 

 of Warren, Mass.. who thus writes respecting 

 this species : — 



" In the fall of tSSi I obtained several al- 

 most fuU-giown larvae and put them in a 

 box with plenty of pine and button-wood 

 leaves; in a few days I noticed that several 

 had disappeared, and upon examination found 

 the skins with the juice all extracted. They 

 were all of large size, and I found one or two 

 of these skins held in the manner described by 

 you. I then put in several full-grown larvae 

 of Telcii polyp/icmiis. and they were disposed 

 of in the same way. This led me to conclude 

 they were carnivorous. In 1S82 I noticed 

 the same thing." 



(^Tv ftt cotitirnmfK) 



