TMP] ENTOMOLOGIST. 



No. 54.] JUNE, MDCCCLXVIII. [Price Cd. 



Proceedings of tUe Entomological Society of London. 



February 3, 1868. — H. W. Bates, Esq., President, iu the 

 chair. 



The President, after thanking the Society for the honour 

 conferred upon him by his election to the chair, nominated 

 as Vice-Presidents, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. W. Wilson Saun- 

 ders, and Mr. Stainton. 



Mr. Bond exhibited a female specimen of Drilus flaves- 

 cens, the second specimen of that sex, he believed, which 

 hiid been found in this country. On the 1st of April, 1867, 

 Mr. J. E. Harting was collecting shells on the South Downs 

 at Harting, Sussex, and the Drilus was discovered in a shell 

 of Helix Kricetorum. The larva has for some time been 

 known to live in snail shells (see Proc. Ent. Soc. 1858, p. 9), 

 and Mr. Bond suggested that the female had been hatched in 

 the shell in which it had been discovered, and had never 

 quitted it until disturbed by Mr. Harting. 



Mr. Bond exhibited larva-skins of a species of Dermestes, 

 which he was at first informed had not only destroyed the 

 bladder-coverings of sixty pots of preserved fruits, but had 

 also eaten a considerable portion of the contents ; but on 

 further inquiry it turned out the larvae had not in this case 

 eaten any of the fruit, but merely damaged the surface, which 

 was covered with larva-skins and " what appeared to be powder 

 or small eggs." Mr. Newman, however, had informed Mr. 

 Bond that a city house had recently sustained great loss from 

 the same insect : in this instance the pots of marmalade were 

 covered with paper only, not with skin, and the larvae had 

 actually consumed part of the contents, and rendered the 

 whole worthless. 



Mr. M'Lachlan had found quantities of a Dermestes larva 

 in the timbers of a ship, upon which they had fed. Mr. F. 

 Smith had reared Dermestes from timber ; and Mr. Janson 



VOL. IV. a 



