Clifton College Scientific Society. 19 



the same time it is also as certainly proved that the wounds 

 are never fatal. Nor are vampires so rapacious as they are 

 described, for Mr. Watei*ton, desiring to experience an 

 attack, slept for eleven months in an open loft, yet without 

 success, though other persons sleeping a few yards off 

 suffered repeatedly. An unfortunate jackass, meanwhile, 

 was being killed by inches, and was so far reduced by the 

 nocturnal assaults committed on it, that, in Mr. Waterton's 

 own words, he apjjeared ' like misery steeped in vinegar." 



MEETING, March 24, 1870. 

 De. Debus, President, in the Chair. 



The minutes of the last Meeting having been read and con- 

 firmed, J. Stone read a paper, of which the following is an 

 abstract, upon ' Butterflies and Moths.' The opening por- 

 tion was devoted to an explanation of the structural forma- 

 tion of butterflies and moths in the perfect state. This was 

 followed by an account of their transformations from the 

 egg, through the larval and pupal stages, to maturity. In 

 describing the second of these stages — i.e. the larval — the 

 writer referred to the extraordinary manner in which the 

 undue increase of lepidopterous caterpillars is arrested, viz. 

 by the deposition within their bodies of one or more eggs, 

 by certain hymenopterous and dipterous insects, familiarly 

 known by the name of Ichneumons. Having given some 

 instructions as to the best methods of capturing, setting, 

 and preserving insects, the vrriter brought his paper to a 

 close with a few observations upon some of the common 

 species of British butterflies. 



On the motion of the President, a vote of thanks was 

 unanimously passed to J. Stone, who had presented a large 

 case of British butterflies to the museum. 



A paper was then read on the ' Mollusca,' by A. Cruttwell, 

 and some typical specimens of the various classes were 

 exhibited. 



Mr. Barrington Ward exhibited an emu's egg and a speci- 

 men of the Duck-billed Platypus [Ornithorhynchus paradoxus). 



' Essays on Natural History, by Charles Waterton. 



