min 
Puysto.Loay. 
The remarkable insects collected at Kerguelen’s Island, and 
exhibited at one of our meetings by the Rev. A. E. Eaton, the 
Naturalist attached to the Transit of Venus Expedition to that 
locality, have since been described in the ‘ Entomologist’s Monthly 
Magazine,’ —the Diptera, together with a single Lepidopterous 
specimen, allied to the Gelechiide, by Mr. Eaton ; the Coleoptera, 
by Mr. C. O. Waterhouse. 
These insects, mostly apterous, or furnished with rudimentary 
wings (one of the Diptera, to which the name of Anatalanta 
aptera has been assigned, having neither wings nor halteres), 
coincide in this respect with many of those of the Madeira Fauna 
described by Mr. Wollaston in his ‘ Insecta Maderensia;’ for which 
a plausible explanation has been afforded in the circumstances 
which impede the use of such organs in these exposed insular 
abodes. A Report by Mr. Eaton has also been published in the 
Proceedings of the Royal Society. 
An elaborate Essay by M. Félix Plateau, Professor of the 
University at Gand, on the Phenomena of Digestion among 
Insects, has appeared in the ‘Memoires de l’Académie Royale 
des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-arts de Belgique’ (Tome, 
xli. 1874), wherein many interesting facts elicited by his researches 
are related; an abstract of which, compiled by the author, is 
given in the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ (August, 
1875). 
Dr. Miiller has recently published a paper* in the ‘ Bienen 
Zeitung’ (July 2), whereof a summary appears in ‘ Nature’ (No. 
814, Nov. 4), to which a sequel is promised hereafter; wherein 
he treats of various groups of hymenopterous insects, “in which 
we find a series of forms presenting more and more complex life- 
relations, accompanied by a higher and higher mental organisa- 
tion ;”’ the consideration of which gradations he considers ‘ cal- 
culated to throw much light on the question— How has the honey- 
bee acquired its remarkable instincts?” 
* Dr. Miiller’s memoir appears to have been, in some respects, founded upon 
Lepeleticr de Saint-Fargeau’s long-exploded classification in relation to “les 
habitudes morales,” given in the ‘ Suites a Buffon’ (Hyménoptéres, i., pp. 81—89). 
