201 



SOCIETIES. 



Entomological Society of London. — Jane 2?ir?.— Mr. R. Trimen, 

 F.H.S., President, in the chair. The President referred to the great 

 loss which the Society had sustained by the death of Dr. Eritz 

 Midler, one of its honorary Fellows, and to his distinguished services 

 in the cause of entomological science, and especially in forwarding the 

 theory of the origin of species. Dr. Chapman exhibited the larva of 

 Eriocephala aUioneUa. Mr. Jacoby exhibited a fine example of the 

 large Hepialid, Leto venus, from Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. The 

 President said that the insect afforded an interesting case of localised 

 distribution, being confined to an area of about fifty by fourteen miles, 

 whereas the larva fed in the wood of Vinjiiia capensis, a common and 

 widely-distributed leguminous tree. The insect was very conspicuous, 

 and could not have been overlooked in other localities. Mr. Burr 

 showed a pair of gynandromorphous earwigs, Chdisoches viorio, Fabr., 

 from Java, with ordinary males and females for comparison. In both 

 specimens the right branch of the forceps was of the male, and the left 

 branch of the female form. De Bormans had recorded a similar case 

 in Lahidura pw/na.v, Kirb., from Burmah, in which also the right 

 branch was male and the left female. In the National Collection 

 there was a Chelisoches morio, in which the left branch was male and 

 the right female. According to Brunner this phenomenon was not 

 uncommon in the ForficularidfB, but Mr. Burr had heard of no other 

 cases. The Hon. Walter Piothschild exhibited a series of specimens of 

 Juidamonia brachyura, Drury, and E. anjiphontes, Kirby, to show 

 the differences between these two West African Saturniid moths. 

 The distinctness of the latter species had been doubted, as until 

 recently it was only known by the unique examples in the 

 Dublin Museum, and the three published figures of these were 

 materially different from each other. A comparison of the series 

 exhibited showed the two species to be abundantly distinct. Mr. 

 Kirkaldy exhibited fifty specimens of Notonccia (jiamci, Linn., to 

 show the extreme range in size and colour of this widely-distributed 

 species, to which the Palaearctic N. hitea, Miill., was extremely 

 closely allied, if not conspecific with it. The discussion on mimicry 

 and homoeochromatism in butterflies was then resumed by Dr. Dixey, 

 who replied to the comments of Prof. Poulton and Mr. Blandford on 

 his paper. He did not regard the phenomenon of reciprocal con- 

 vergence as necessarily a demonstrable feature in Miillerian mimicry ; 

 it was merely potential. With respect to mimetic Pierid^e, he did not 

 consider that they were invariably protected, but that, in certain 

 cases, they were shown to be so by the indications of convergence 

 exhibited by the models. Mr. Elwes thought, from his personal 

 experience as a collector, that there was too much assumption about 

 both the Batesian and Miillerian theories. In many supposed cases 

 he doubted whether the so-called models were protected by taste or 

 smell. He had previously referred to the extraordinary superficial 

 resemblance between two Pieridffi found in the high Andes of Bolivia, 

 and two others found at similar elevations in Ladak, and was inclined 



