( lx ) 
taken to Norway, and probably fed unsuitably, and developed 
slowly in a perfectly dry tube. 
The adult male exhibited was bred by Mr. C. B. Williams 
from a larva brought by the exhibitor from El Kantara (just 
S. of the Atlas range). This was kept reeking wet between 
two pieces of bark ina beaker, and had developed much more 
quickly. The food was again doubtful; it had had Psocids and 
mildew as well as bark in its beaker. It had been kept warm 
in a greenhouse. 
HEMIPTERA-HETEROPTERA STILL PRESERVING CHARACTER- 
ISTIC SMELL AFTER A LAPSE OF EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS.—Mr. 
Buxton also brought a drawer of mixed Heteroptera (Penta- 
tomids, etc.) given to a relation of his who died in 1830. The 
drawer still smelt strongly of bugs, quite differently from any 
other drawer in the same collection. 
REMARKABLE COLEOPTEROUS Patpi—Mr. E. EH. GREEN 
exhibited a Drilid (?%) beetle, from Ambalangoda, Ceylon, 
with remarkable elongate spatulate mandibular and maxillary 
palpi. 
Braconip sitk.—Mr. W. J. Lucas exhibited, on behalf 
of Mr. G. T. Lyle, some silk wound from a Braconid cocoon, 
together with specimens of the cocoons themselves. Mr. Lyle 
had written as follows :— 
“Many species of Braconidae, or rather their larvae, are 
known to form silken cocoons in which a period of from eight 
days to eleven months is passed, according to the species and 
season. One of the largest of these to be found in Britain is 
Meteorus albiditarsis, Curtis, which is parasitic upon the 
larvae of various species of Noctuids, and whose cocoon is 
generally, if not always, formed underground, within that of 
its host. 
“A certain resemblance which this cocoon possesses in 
shape, texture and colour to that of the silkworm of commerce, 
Bombyx mori, led me to believe that its silk might be wound 
off in a similar manner. This I found to be quite easy, and 
by employing the same methods as I did when a small boy 
with the silkworm cocoons, I obtained the skein of silk which 
is exhibited to-night. The silk would appear to be somewhat 
finer than that of the silkworm, but even if superior in quality, 
