( X > 



Persia in June 1902, by Mr. H. F. Witherby, F.Z.S., the 

 well-known ornithologist. The fly had inserted its proboscis 

 at the junction of the head and prothorax, a vuhierable point. 

 Mr. G. H. A'errall said that he had seen a moderate-sized 

 Asilid in Darenth Wood attack an insect much larger than 

 itself, and that Lord Walsingham had received a species of 

 the same family which attacked large dragonflies. Mr. 

 MoLachlan also exhibited a female specimen of a large 

 ^schnid dragonfly, Hemianax ephipjm/er, Burm., captured 

 in a street at Devonport on February 24, 1903, by a tram- 

 car driver as it was flying about his vehicle. The species 

 occasionally visits southern Europe in migratory swarms or 

 sporadically, but is especially African, and its presence at 

 Devonport in February might possibly be due to the example 

 having flown on board a vessel off the African coast, and 

 then becoming lethargic until roused by the unusually high 

 temperature prevailing in the south of England at that time. 

 The species has once been observed on the Continent as far 

 north as Brussels. Mr. F. Merrifield suggested that there 

 might be some connection between the appearance of the 

 insect in England and the reported showers of fine dvist 

 which are generally supposed to have come from the Sahara. 



Professor E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., exhibited seasonal foi-ms 

 of Precis antilojie, parent and offspring, bred in 1902 by 

 Mr. G. A. K. Marshall in South Africa, showing the remark- 

 able dimorphism of the species, which was especially notice- 

 able in the protective colouring of the under-side of the dry- 

 season form as compai-ed Avith the startling conspicuousness 

 of the under-side of the wet. He also exhibited Precis ccelestina, 

 captured by Di'. C A. Wiggins in the Victoria Nyanza region, 

 with the dry-season form of that species, now taken probably 

 for the first time. The resemblance of the under-side of the 

 latter to dead leaves was very marked. Professor Poulton 

 also showed lantern-slides of the *;ame two species. 



Mr. W. J. Lucas exhibited with the lantern a slide showing 

 the larva of Cossiis liyniperda in its gallery in a tree trunk. 



Dr. T. A. Chapman exhibited with the lantern a series of 

 slides illustrating the life history of Liphyra hrassoUs, Westw., 

 a Queensland species, the larva of which lives in ants' nests, 



