26 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



rocket, subject to precisely the same external influences, lie 

 had often noticed three or four pupao of Anthocharis Car- 

 damines, and at times the same twig would produce red, 

 green and white varieties, while at other times all the pupae 

 were of the same colour. 



January 6, 1868. — Sir John Lubbock, Bart., President, in 

 the chair. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited two specimens of a Polistes cap- 

 tured at Penzance by a lady residing in that town ; one 

 specimen was caught in the summer of 1866 on the windnw- 

 sill of a house, and three more were taken at the end of July 

 or beginning of August, 1867, in the very same situation in 

 the window of the same house. The insect did not agree 

 exactly with any described species of Polistes, but appeared 

 to be intermediate between the North-American P. biguttatus 

 and the Brazilian P. versicolor. The captor suggested that 

 they had probably been introduced in wood from a dock- 

 yard situate about a hundred yai'ds from her house ; but Mr. 

 Smith could scarcely beheve that they were imported : the 

 species of Polistes were not wood-boring wasps, but paper- 

 makers, and their slight nests were attached to the outside of 

 a tree, post, wall, &c. ; untrimmed wood was not imported 

 from America. (See the * Entomologist's Annual ' ior 1868, 

 pp. 87, 96). 



Mr. Bates also had difficulty in believing that an insect 

 with the habits of Polistes could have been imported ; the 

 nests were mere strings of cells hanging by a peduncle from 

 the rafter of a house, a shrub, the trunk or branch of a tree ; 

 they were of loose construction, incapable of withstanding 

 exposure. Such a nest could hardly be transported in safety, 

 either with timber on board ship or w ashed across by the 

 gulf-stream. Such was the rapidity of life in Brazil, and so 

 quick the succession of broods, that the eggs would not 

 remain unhatched during the voyage, and if hatched the 

 young larvae must perish. Nor did he think it likely that 

 perfect wasps would be brought over alive ; at any rate the 

 specimens would be worn, and very different from those 

 exhibited. 



Mr. M'Lachlan exhibited a Trichopterous insect new to 

 Britain, Neuionia clalhrata of Kolenati, caj)tured at Bishop's 

 Wood, Staffordshire, by Mr. Chappell, of Manchester. 



