10 



The President said a case had come under his nuticc in which cockroaches had 

 been destroyed in a drawing-room, under the floor of which they had taken up their 

 quarters, Ly the use of chloride of lime ; and he thought it possible this preparation 

 might be of service in the case now under consideration. 



Read the following note by Mr. Newman : — 



On the Genus Synemon. 



" There is scarcely a genus of Lepidoptera more interesting than the Australian 

 Synemon. With the general habit and abruptly clavate antennaa of a butterfly, it 

 has other very important characters of a moth; and it will be fresh in the recollection 

 of our Lepidopterists that our never-to-be-forgotten and most talented Secretary, 

 Edward Doubleday,* wrote quite an Essay to show that it was a moth and not a but- 

 terfly. Well ! I have gleaned a few more grains of information about Synemon from 

 Mr. Oxley, who constantly saw it and often took it at the diggings. It is strictly di- 

 urnal, flitting about in the hot sunshine, among the tufts of grass and low scrub, with 

 all the restless activity of a skipper: when it settles it rests for a minute with deflexed 

 wings, but witli the fore wings spread out nearly at right angles with the body, so as 

 to display the more gaily-coloured hind wings. At night and in cloudy weather it 

 rests on blades of grass, with the wings erect, meeting vertically over the back. Thus, 

 iu the combination of characters, these antipodeans unconsciously annihilate the dis- 

 tinction between butterflies and moths, between Rhopalocera and Heterocera : the 

 gradations from Hesperia to Synemon, from Synemon to Castnia, from Castnia to 

 Sphinx, and so on to the normal Heterocera, are easy and natural, and seem to bridge 

 over the gulf which formerly existed in our minds between butterflies and moths." 



Specimens of two species were exhibited in illustration. 



New Genera of Coleoptera. 



Mr. Westwood read descriptions of two beetles especially remarkable for the lateral 

 dilation of the head, a character of great rarity iu insects. They would constitute 

 new genera, and he described them under the names of Enotiophorus vestitus and 

 Triplacodes Guineensis, the former from Ceylon, the latter from Guinea. 



Mr. Stevens communicated the following note from Mr. H. W. Bates, Corr. 

 M.E.S.: — 



On the Sexual Distinctions vi the South- American Coleopterous Genus Agra. 



" Lately I captured a pair, in cojmlA, of a species of the genus Agra, and profited 

 by the fortunate circumstance to examine if there were any external diff'erences between 

 the sexes. I found several characters very strongly marked, in fact so obvious that I 

 think it scarcely possible they have escaped the notice of entomologists to the present 

 time. The chief distinction is the pubescence of the under surface of the body iu 

 the male. Examining afterwards other species, with this guide, I have paired satis- 

 iactorily five or six. The amount of pubescence varies according to the species: 

 whilst in one the central parts of the mctasternum and all the abdominal segments 



* See Appendix, by Edward Doubleday, to Lort's Discov. Austral i. 516. 



