PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 39 



of pottery. Colonel Lane Fox found about 600 chipped implements 

 of different kinds, whicli he considered might be referred to the 

 neolithic period. Upon a recent visit, in company with Mr, J. P. M. 

 Smith and Mr. Wonfor, he had taken away 100 wrought flints, many 

 of rude type, but all exhibiting manifest marks of design. Some 

 were well shaj^ed, especially some lance heads, while flakes, picks, 

 slingstones, and edged tools, abounded in the circular pits, and on the 

 surface of the encampments. Nowhere had he found the rubbed 

 implements, which are not rare in Hampshire. The implements 

 recently thrown out of the pits showed fresh surface patination, 

 while those scattered about the hill, having undergone long atmo- 

 spheric action, showed a change of colour, to the depth, in some cases, 

 of a quarter of an inch. The question how the occupants of the hills 

 could obtain water, their possible hunting grounds, together with the 

 cattle probably kept by them, were next discussed, and reference was 

 made to a Roman building and a subterranean trench and caves 

 beneath it, occupied by a flint-using people, lately excavated by him 

 at Finkley, Hants. 



October 26th.— Microscopical Meeting. Mr. W. M. Hollis, 

 President, in the chair. 



The subject of the evening, " The Scales of Insects," was intro- 

 duced by Mr. Wonfor. 



By the term " the scales of insects," was understood those epi- 

 dermal appendages found on the head, thorax, legs, and abdomen of 

 some insects ; on the wing cases or elytra of some beetles ; and on 

 both surfaces of the wings of butterflies and moths ; to which they 

 gave that wonderful beauty of colour which rendered them objects of 

 admii'ation even to the non-entomologist. 



In general terms, scales might be designated as flattened hairs ; 

 though, in examining the multitudinous forms and varieties found 

 among insects, every stage between the round hair and the purely 

 flattened scale might be found. The analogy to hairs was also seen 

 in their horny character. 



Taken as hairs, they seemed to present three different types : one 

 very common one being those in which there was an upper and lower 

 surface, more or less rugose, striated or wrinkled, with an inner 

 structureless membrane between them, which seemed to act as a kind 

 of foil to throw up the brilliant colour of the scales. In another 

 type, the upper and under surfaces, without the inner structureless 

 membrane, were welded together ; for, where the scales were broken 

 or damaged, no trace of the intermediate membrane could be detected. 

 In a third type, the scales were more or less round, sometimes 

 tasselled, and devoid of the inner membrane. In these last, and 

 possibly also in the first type, there seemed to be a power on the part 

 of the insect of inflating or puffing out the scales, so as, possibly, to 

 render them more buoyant. Certainly these scales, when taken from 

 fresh-caught specimens, were rounded, but, when pressed between glass, 

 they became flattened. 



Each scale was inserted in the wing membrane by a stalk, and 

 here, especially among the lepidoptera, the creatures appeared able not 



