12 



Exhibitions. 



Mr. Janson exhibited three specimens of a Histerideous beetle, hitherto unnoticed 

 as British, Hetaerius quadratus, Ku(/., Eric, which he had captured in the society of 

 ants at Hampstead, a single individual, on the 21st of April, 1848, in a nest of For- 

 mica flava, since which period he had assiduously searched for it every year, but un- 

 successfully : on the 4th inst., however, he again met with two examples beneath a 

 stone in the company of Formica fusca : he remarked that this insect, which was of 

 great rarity on the Continent, appeared to be truly Myrmecophilous, and he called the 

 attention of the meeting to the great similarity of form which exists between it and 

 the anomalous genus Thorictus, likewise ants'-ne.=;t insects, and of which four species 

 were in the box ; this resemblance he observed appeared, however, to be rather one of 

 analogy than of real affinity. Mr. Janson added that his mode of obtaining these 

 ants'-nest insects was by placing large stones or bricks in the vicinity of the nests, and 

 carefully examining their under surfaces from time to lime. 



Mr. S. Stevens exhibited a fine male specimen of Petasia nubeculosa recently taken 

 by Mr. Fo.\"croft in Perthshire, and a remarkably fine specimen of Aleucis pictaria, 

 which he had lately taken on Dartford Heath; also Pentaplatarthrus Natalensis, male 

 and female, sent by Mr. R. W. Plant from Natal, and observed that these specimens 

 were extremely interesting, from the fact that the sexes of the Paussidae were not pre- 

 viously known ; he also exhibited several pairs of a singular Brenthus, described by Mr. 

 Weslwood in the fifth volume of the 'Transactions' of the Society, p. 206, under the 

 name of Taphroderes distortus, and figured on the 22nd Plate of tliat volume, the left 

 mandible of the male being much larger than the right, and singularly distorted. 



Captain Cox exhibited a very large specimen of Acherontia Atropos taken in the 

 Hospital at Scutari ; also some drawings of the larva of British Lepidoptera, beauti- 

 fully executed by Mrs. Cox : he expressed his intention, on the series becoming 

 more complete, of making arrangements for their publication. 



Mr. Bond exhibited specimens of the case-bearing larva of ColeophoraWockeella, 

 found on Betonica officinalis, in a wood near Canterbury : only five British specimens 

 of this species have hitherto been detected, all found by Mr. Weir near Pembury. 



Mr. Stainton exhibited, on behalf of Mr. John Scott, a specimen of Elachista 

 Taeuiatella, {Zeller), a new British species bred from a larva found last autumn in the 

 leaves of Brachypodium sylvaticum ; he also exhibited a most beautifully executed 

 engraving of Lithocolletis tenella, engraved on steel by Mr. Edward Robinson. 



Mr. Newman communicated the following: — 



Note on Hemcrobius variegatus. 



I am indebted to Mr. Dorville for the opportunity of offering to the notice of the 

 Society a singular instance of deviation from normal economy in a very familiar genus 

 of insects: he found the pupa shell of Abraxas Grossularia filled with a beautifully 

 white silken cocoon, which he very logically supposed that of a parasite which had 

 destroyed the pupa ; but lo ! and behold ! when the tenant, and indeed the artificer, of 

 tlic delicate fabric burst its sere-clothes and emerged as an imago, it proved to be a 

 specimen of Hemcrobius variegatus, an insect in which parasitic propensities are utterly 

 unkaown. The inference is that the larva of the Hemcrobius simply availed itself of 



