( viii ) 



mentioned, viz., an inch long, was too great for the hirvje of 

 Dermestea, and he thought it possible that the worms referred 

 to might have been Lepidopterous larvje. Mr. Walker 

 replied that beetles were not mentioned ; the larvae of Der- 

 mesies were by no means small, and it would not be a very 

 great exaggeration to describe them as being an inch long ; 

 the fact, moreover, that these creatures were spoken of as 

 worms, that they were bred from decayed penguins, and had 

 gnawed into wood, seemed in favour of their being the larvae 

 of some species of Dermestes. 



Papers, dec. 

 Mr. G. J. Arrow contributed a paper " On Sexual Dimor- 

 phism in Beetles of the Family RutelidcB," and sent for exhi- 

 bition a series, including both sexes of six species of Anomala, 

 selected to illustrate the subject. He called attention to the 

 serious complication in nomenclature resulting from the 

 neglect on the part of many systematists to notice what 

 characters were sexual when describing new species, and 

 observed that the number of recorded instances of sexual 

 dimorphism would doubtless be much greater but for this 

 cause. He then briefly described the known cases in Anomala 

 and allied genera of Rutelidte, and pointed out a considerable 

 number of additional instances, ten of which related to species 

 described as new. The sexual differences referred to were of 

 two kinds : (1) in the structure of the claws, these being cleft 

 in the female and entirely or partly simple in the male ; and 

 (2) in colour or marking. Several cases of the latter kind 

 had already been noticed by Burmeister and Fairmaire ; and 

 Mr. Arrow pointed out that in these and similar instances, 

 the males were invariably characterised by a greater exuber- 

 ance of colouring matter, or the superposition of a darker 

 hue. In the rare cases of aberration from the distinctive 

 sexual forms, all the instances observed were those of females 

 which had adopted the coloration proper to the males, thus 

 associating them with the cases of gynandromorphism familiar 

 in animals of higher type. 



