~~. 
Proceedings. xlix. 
The PRESIDENT announced that Mr. Thomas Cushing had 
kindly presented the Club with six volumes of Professor 
Symons’ work on ‘British Rainfall” (from 1865 to 1870.) The 
thanks of the Club were awarded to Mr. Cushing for his useful 
present. 
It was further announced that the annual soiree would be 
held on November 24th. 
A letter was read from a gentleman at Pardubitz, in Bohemia, 
who asked to be supplied with the report of the Club’s pro- 
ceedings for 1879. 
The PREsIDENT exhibited and described a flint, which he had 
picked off a heap of gravel dug out on the Friends’ School 
estate in Park Lane, Croydon, and which, at first sight, looked 
very much like a flint implement. He explained that it was 
really nothing more than a natural flint, but was interesting, 
because, by comparing it with genuine flint implements, the 
points in which worked flints invariably differed from natural 
flints could be easily seen. A number of flint implements, much 
resembling in shape the natural flint, were also exhibited and 
described, and the characteristics of these were pointed out and 
explained. The President also pointed out how impossible it 
was that these characteristics could ever be imparted to a flint 
by natural causes. 
The PRESIDENT also exhibited a number of cocoons of the 
Common Puss Moth (Dicranura vinula) with specimens of the 
moth, and called particular attention to the solidity and 
hardness of the cocoons, which were also opaque, admitting 
little or no light. He further explained that, hard as they were, 
they were composed of nothing but small chips of wood, or 
particles of earth, mixed with a secretion from the caterpillar, 
and the way in which the cocoon was formed was explained. 
The difficulty which many naturalists felt in explaining how it 
was that so very soft a creature as the Puss Moth was able to 
work its way out of such a very hard envelope was removed on 
a careful examination of the cocoons. In every one of them 
there was one small part where the shell of the cocoon was 
thin and semi-transparent, and through that thin portion 
which seemed invariably to be left immediately over the face 
of the moth, the inseet made its escape. So strong was the 
instinct which impelled the insect to get out in this way, that 
from one of the cocoons, which was exhibited, the moth had 
still eaten its way out through the thin portion, although a 
large part of the cocoon had previously been cut away and 
destroyed, and the moth, which came out in broad daylight, 
could, apparently, easily have got out of the cocoon without 
having to eat its way out at all. 
Mr. E. Lovett mentioned the case ofa caterpillar of the 
A 4 
