iXxili 
four; under one as many as twenty. But few were running about, and these either 
| round the deposits or from one to another. As usual they never once attempted to fly, 
| though they have ample wings, and the day was sufliciently warm: they ran, but not 
very fast, and were easily taken. Under the piece of cow-dung where the largest 
} number were found only two or three were at first seen, but others had gone below the 
| surface of the ground, and on watching a slight kicking or disturbance of the earth 
took place, and the beetle was easily captured. The males and females, slightly 
| differing in size, the latter being the largest, were much together, and I conclude it 
| was late in their season, and that the eggs were being deposited beneath the surface 
| under the cow-dung. There were not any larve about, though I had seen them at 
| this time of year on a previous occasion. The beetles smelt strongly of the substance 
| under which they burrowed, and I think they fed on it. 
‘Our large five-horned Copris has of late years spread in the Gawler districts from 
the same cause, viz. the numerous deposits from the cattle. Through this, while in a 
moist state, they pierce during the dark hours, going often a foot down, making large 
| holes, and throwing up the earth behind them; and I have dug out from under one 
| piece from twenty to thirty specimens, male and female. They first appear in June, 
| when rain has fallen, up to September when leaving off.” 
Prof. Westwood observed that, in the note referred to, in the ‘ Modern Classifica- 
tion, he undoubtedly was speaking of Formicide, and not of Termitide. Mr. Wilson 
did not seem to be aware that Pausside had been repeatedly found in ants’ nests, and 
that several species had been sent from the Cape of Good Hope by Guienzius with the 
nests of the particular species of Formicidz which they frequented. 
Mr. A. R. Wallace remarked upon the rapidity with which the insects mentioned 
by Mr. Wilson had adapted their mode of life to the altered circumstances in which 
they found themselves placed; thirty years ago there was not a cow in South Australia, 
and yet members of three families of Coleoptera, so widely separated as the Pausside, 
Carabide and Copride, had already become habitual frequenters of cow-dung; and 
this was the more remarkable in the Calosoma, whose British congener was arboreal 
in its habits. 
Mr. Gould exhibited Hylurgus piniperda, which was doing considerable mischief 
to Pinus insignis in several parks and plantations in Cornwall. 
Mr. Pascoe called attention to an article on Atropos pulsatoria in Hardwicke’s 
‘Science Gossip, of the Ist of February, 1867, in which Mr. W. Chaney wrote as 
follows :— 
“My first acquaintance with Atropos, or as it is generally called here the wood- 
louse, commenced about thirteen or fourteen years ago: at that time I lived in an old 
house in Brompton, near Chatham, and in my bed-room, which was also my library 
and museum, I had a very olla podrida of Natural History hanging about the walls; 
among the rest was a honey-comb, It was soon after the introduction of this to my 
list of curiosities that the strange ticking sound (which at the time sorely puzzled me) 
commenced, and that led me eventually to the investigation of the cause. I soon 
found that the noise proceeded from the comb, and on closer examination I sawa 
number of wood-lice travelling about from one cell to another, and appearing very busy 
in their explorations. After awhile the ticking commenced, which I quickly traced to 
a particular cell, and by the aid of a common convex lens I could perceive Atropos 
