Ixxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



corporeal waste is very small, — permitting retention of life without 

 the use of food, — the object, no doubt, for which the hybernating 

 faculty is by nature intended. All that came under my notice in the 

 instances of these butterflies seemed to accord with this view, such 

 as the rapid transition from activity of organs to rest, and that so 

 perfect, as to simulate death on reduction of a few degrees of 

 temperature ; and. the length of time life was sustained without 

 the support of food, that is, compared with the time insects of the 

 same family live at a high and uniform temperature in a state not 

 of torpor, when confined and deprived of food : thus, in Barbados, 

 butterflies so confined I have commonly found dead in two or 

 three days. 



" It is my intention, if leisure and opportunities permit, to pro- 

 secute the subject further, and to make some experiments on the 

 effects of gasses not capable of supporting life on such insects 

 which seem to have the power of hybernating. Should the results 

 be at all decisive, I shall have pleasure in communicating them to 

 you, to dispose of like the present, as you may think best. 



" I am, my dear Sir, 



Yours very truly, 



J. Davy." 



6//j August, 1819. 

 J. F. Stephens, Esq., F.L.S., Vice-President in the Chair. 



Donations. 



A quantity of interesting insects of India, collected and pre- 

 sented by Captain Hutton. 



A specimen of Sirex gtgas, found boring in wood. Presented 

 by Mr, Lamb, Flurstbourne Park, Whitchurch, Hants. 



Six specimens of L'lxus angustatus, from Hastings, and Har- 

 •palus tardus? from near Northampton. Presented by the Rev. 

 Hamlet Clark. 



A Memoir on the Circulation in the Larvae of Insects, by 

 M. Verloren, Docteur-en-Sciences, Utrecht. Presented by the 

 Author. 



Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field-Club, vol. i. 

 part 3. Presented by the Club, 



Nya Svenska Homoptera beskrifnaj af Carl H. Boheman, 

 Presented by the Author. 



