96 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



labour, as compared with the conditions existing at the beginning of 

 the nineteenth century. He called attention to certain abuses pre- 

 valent, instaticing, among others, the hasty and ill-digested natiire of 

 much of the work now published, the result, as he believed, of the 

 facilities that are given for publication. Having referred also to the 

 vast increase in the number and variety of the publications which a 

 student must consult in order to be fully acquainted with the work 

 done in his special branch of study, Mr. Verrall proceeded to suggest 

 that there should be an international agreement for the purpose, not 

 only of restricting the number of the publications to be recognized, but 

 of exercising some control over their contents, in order that worthless 

 papers might be excluded. In conclusion, he briefly summarised the 

 reforms which he considered most essential to be effected at the 

 beginning of the new century. A vote of thanks, proposed by Prof. 

 Meldola, and seconded by Mr. Blandford, was unanimously accorded 

 to the President for his address, and to the President and the other 

 officers for their services to the Society during the past year. Messrs. 

 Verrall, McLachlan, Gahan, and Champion spoke in reply, and the 

 proceedings terminated. 



Februarij 7th. — Mr. G. H. Verrall, President, in the chair. — The 

 President announced that he had appointed Dr. T. A. Chapman, F.Z.S., 

 Mr. W. L. Distant, and Mr. C. 0. Waterhouse as Vice-Presidents. He 

 announced the death of William Blundell Spence, who had been a 

 member of the Society since its foundation in 1833, and who was for 

 some years past the only surviving original member. Mrs. M. de la 

 B. Nicholl, of Merthyr Mawr, Bridgend, was elected a Fellow of the 

 Society. Mr. 0. E. Janson exhibited examples of Achias hm/ividens, 

 Walk., a remarkable fly from New Guinea, in which the eyes are set 

 at the end of very long stalk-like processes. The specimens showed 

 great variation in the length of the eye-stalks, which in the most fully 

 developed males considerably exceeded the length of the wings. Mr. 

 J. W. Tutt exhibited a series of specimens of Epunda iutuhnta, in- 

 cluding those remarkable variations to which he had referred in his 

 notes on the species, read at a previous meeting. Mr. Champion ex- 

 hibited a large number of Coleoptera collected by Dr. Chapman, Mr. 

 Edwards, and himself, in July last, in Switzerland. He called atten- 

 tion to the great variation in colour of one or two common species of 

 the Chrysomelid genus Orina, and said he believed that the forms 

 known as 0. cacalia;, Schrank, 0. speciosissima, Scop., and under other 

 names, all belonged to one extremely variable species. Prof. T. 

 Hudson Beare showed specimens of Dinoderus mimitiis, Fab., obtained 

 from a bamboo basket in his house at Richmond. They were speci- 

 fically identical with the Dinoderus substriatiis of Stephens. Mr. H. 

 Donisthorpe exhibited a larva-case of Clythra qundrijninctata taken 

 from a nest of the red wood-ant, Forinica rufa. He commented upon 

 the unsatisfactory state of our knowledge as to the food-habits of the 

 larvae of Clythra, and said he believed the larvae fed upon the eggs of 

 the ant. The President remarked that there was a species of Microdon 

 of which the pupa- case had an obvious similarity to the larva-case of 

 Clythra, and was, he believed, found in the nest of the same species of 

 ant. Mr. Gahan mentioned, in connection with the genus Clythra, 

 that these beetles possess a stridulating organ on the mesonotum, not 



