JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. Ixiii 



they had inscribed their names in the signature-book as Patronesses 

 of the Society. 



Memoirs, Exhibitions, &c. 



Letters were read from M. Schonherr, For. Honorary Member of 

 the Society, and M. Dreux, the latter giving an account of Bra- 

 zilian insects which he had to offer for sale. 



The Secretary exhibited specimens of the male and female Ceto- 

 nia guttata, received from Sierra Leone, and belonging to the collec- 

 tion of the Natural History Society of Belfast, respecting which 

 species doubts existed in the works of entomological authors both as 

 regarded the sexual diversity and tlie geographical locality. The 

 male is remarkable for having two straight porrected horns arising 

 from the sides of the head. (Vide Ann. Soc. Ent. France, t. v. pi. 5.) 



He also exhibited a bee from the same collection, partaking of the 

 characters of Anthophora and Xylocopa, and forming the type of a 

 new genus. 



The President exhibited a living specimen of a large metallic- 

 coloured species of Cassida from Colombia, which had been kept alive 

 in this country by placing moistened leaves in the box. It was stated 

 to feed upon wood. When dead it loses all its brilliancy, and becomes 

 of a dirty yellowish brown colour. The President especially directed 

 the attention of the meeting to this circumstance, which also occurs 

 in several British species, as worthy of investigation in a physiologi- 

 cal point of view, as it was affirmed that the colour revives upon 

 plunging the dead specimens into hot water. 



The President also exhibited a collection of insects made in the 

 Bara Tonga Islands of the South Pacific Ocean by Mr. Nightingale, 

 and made several observations upon the different species contained 

 therein. Mr. Nightingale, who was present as a visitor at the meet- 

 ing, stated that the entomology of these islands was of a very limited 

 extent, and that the most formidable species was a Phasma (of which 

 species both sexes were contained in the collection), and which is 

 sometimes so abundant in the islands, feeding upon the cocoa-nut 

 trees and devouring both the old stock and the young shoots, that 

 orders are issued by the chiefs to destroy them by cutting them in 

 pieces, thereby to prevent the damage to this tree, which constitutes, 

 in fact, the chief support of the community ; from which circum- 

 stance, in conjunction with the absenceof mammalia in these islands, 

 the President was induced to infer the origin of cannibalism. 



The President also exhibited an extensive collection of insects from 

 the Cape of Good Hope, including species oiApion and various other 

 genera not previously obtained from that country. 



