@ i) 
said to be the destructive cotton worm. ‘The larve exhibited were certainly 
coleopterous, and Mr. M‘Lachlan considered it probable they belonged to 
the genus Dynastes. Secondly, a moth, one of the Noctua, from South 
Wales, attacked by a species of Jsaria. 
Mr. C. O. Waterhouse was inclined to refer the South American larva 
to the genus Passalus, from an examination of the form of the head. 
Mr. M‘Lachlan also exhibited three males and one female of Thore 
concinna, a beautiful dragon-fly from Ecuador described in his paper read 
this evening. 
Mr. T. R. Billups exhibited two specimens of Pezomachus distinctus, 
a species new to the British fauna, from Mickleham ; also a new species of 
Stibeutes, captured at Deal last August. 
Mr. F’. P. Pascoe exhibited a specimen of Peripatus Nove-Zelandia in 
spirits, and remarked that Sir J. Lubbock, in his recent Address, quoted a 
German author who asserted that the trachee discovered by Moseley were 
merely modifications of the subcutaneous glands, thus again removing 
this curious creature from the Arthropoda back to the worms (Vermes). 
This was, however, contrary to the opinion of Huxley, Schmarda and other 
writers. It was stated that Peripatus was unsegmented, but Schmarda 
gives “13 to 36” segments in characterizing the group. Through the 
kindness of Prof. Jeffrey Bell, he (Mr. Pascoe) had examined the species in 
the British Museum, and found that P. Edwardsti was the only one with 
any traces of segmentation. It is probable that Schmarda intended that 
each pair of legs indicated a segment. 
Mr. W. L. Distant exhibited a very large Cicada received from Mada- 
gascar, belonging to the genus Platyplewra, but at present undescribed.* 
This insect was interesting in two respects :—first, from its large size, 
surpassing any species of this widely distributed genus in the Ethiopian 
and Oriental regions, excepting perhaps large specimens of the W. African 
P. limbata ; secondly, as being the type of two or three species of the genus 
in Madagascar, peculiar and similar in their common facies, but so very 
alike in colour and markings as to defy separation, were it not for the 
remarkable and strong divergence of structural characters to be found in 
the structure and size of the drum-flaps beneath. 
In reply to the President, as to whether any information was procured 
as to the amount of sound produced by the musical apparatus of this large 
Cicada, Mr. Distant stated that unfortunately he had no opportunity of 
learning anything of its habits; but that he might perhaps be permitted to 
state, whilst on the subject, that though undoubtedly the possession of the 
sound-giving apparatus was confined to the males, and was thus due to 
sexual causes and used for sexual purposes, it. might still possibly serve 
* Platypleura gigas, Distant, Trans. Ent. Soc., 1881, p. 107. 
