JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. XVI 



to show that the construction of the cells of the wasp was perfectly 

 analogous to those of the hive bee. In order to prove the great 

 tendency that these cells have when unconnected with each other 

 to assume a circular outline (which he contended was the normal 

 form of all cells}, one piece of comb was produced which had 

 been found in a detached situation consisting of three cells, of which 

 the outer part of each was circular, whilst the portions which 

 existed between the three formed three straight walls. He con- 

 sidered that the wasps never make a single cell at the commence- 

 ment of the comb, but proceed very slowly, forming the bases of 

 several together, whereby they assume the hexagonal shape, 

 which would not be the case if they built a single cell, which 

 would be circular ; and he instanced the case of the single cells of 

 Osniia atricajnlla in proof of such argument. 



Mr. Ingpen exhibited some cocoons of the common silkworm, 

 from which the moths had escaped without staining the cocoon, 

 by the emission of the meconium-like fluid, which had been sup- 

 posed to have the effect of dissolving the threads of the silk. Mr. 

 Waterhouse considered it questionable whether some dissolving 

 fluid had not been emitted in these instances from the mouth, 

 which he thought had the same effect, although colourless, the 

 fluid emitted from the anus staining the cocoon. 



Mr. Bainbridge, on behalf of H. Le Keux, Esq., exhibited one 

 of the Iclmeumonidce {Cawpoplex ?), together with the pendulous 

 cocoon from which it had been produced, and in which it had 

 remained for eighteen months before appearing in the winged 

 state. 



Mr. W. W. Saunders exhibited an apparently new species of 

 Embia from India ; also a specimen of Goerius olens, found 

 drowned in water, from the inosculations of the segments of which 

 a great multitude of minute slender white fungi had been pro- 

 duced. 



