116 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



SOCIETIES. 



Entomological Society of London. March 2nd, 1887. — 

 Dr. D. Sharp, President, in the chair. The Rev. Thomas W. Dal- 

 try, M.A., F.L.S., of Madeley Vicarage, StaiTordshire ; Dr. Neville 

 Manders, of the Army Medical Statf, Mooltan, India ; Mr. Alfred 

 Sich, of Cliiswick ; and Mr. J. T. M'Dougall, of Blackheath, were 

 elected Fellows. Mr. Slater exhibited, on behalf of Mr. Mutch, 

 two specimens of Arctia caja, one of which was bred from a 

 larva fed on lime-leaves, and the other from a larva fed on low 

 plants, the ordinary pabulum of the species. The object of the 

 exhibition was to show the effect of food in causing variation in 

 Lepidoptera. Mr. H. J. Elwes exhibited a large number of 

 Lepidoptera-Heterocera, caught by him in the verandah of the 

 Club at Darjeeling, in Sikkim, at an elevation of 7000 feet, on 

 the night of the 4th August, 1880, between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. 

 The specimens exlnbited represented upwards of 120 species, — 

 which was believed to be a lai'ger number than liad ever before 

 been caught in one night, — including Bombyces of the genera 

 Zeuzera, Stauropus, Dasyclilra, Lophopteryx, &c. ; Noctuse of the 

 genera Diphthera, Graphiphora, Gonitis, Plusia, &c. ; and 

 Geometrse of the genera Boarmia, Odontoptera, Urapteryx, 

 Cidaria, Acidalla, Pseudocoremia, and Eupithoscia. Mr. Elwes 

 stated that Mr. A. R. Wallace's observations on the conditions 

 most favourable for collecting moths in the tropics were fully 

 confirmed by his own experience during four months' collecting 

 in Sikkim and the Khasias. The conditions referred to by Mr. 

 Wallace were a dark wet night in the rainy season ; a situation 

 commanding a large extent of virgin forest and uncultivated 

 ground ; and a whitewashed verandah, not too high, with 

 powerful lamps in it. He said that on many nights during June 

 and July he had taken from sixty to eighty species, and during his 

 stay he had collected between 600 and 700 species. Mr. Elwes 

 also made some remarks on the Khasia Hills, the southern slopes 

 of which he believed to be the true habitat of the greater part of 

 those insects described many years ago by Prof. Westwood and 

 others as coming from Sylhet, which was situated in a flat 

 cultivated plain, under water during the rainy season, and not 

 many miles distant from these hills. In consequence of the 



