Xxxvl_) 
(ante p. xxii). He was requested by Mr. Buckler to refer to his description 
of a larva of Hydrecia micacea, Esp., found feeding on the roots and stems 
of Hquisetum arvense and later on FE. fluviatile (cf. Ent. Mo. Mag., vi. 164). 
Mr. Stainton exhibited a specimen of Cerura vinula, L., which had 
been bred by Mr. Piffard from a larva found in Hertfordshire, and from 
the description, more especially of the larva, in Kirby’s ‘ European Butter- 
flies and Moths,’ p. 186, had been referred by him to C. erminea, Esp. 
Mr. Stainton and the members generally considered this specimen lacked 
the peculiar whiteness characteristic of C. erminea, and that it was only 
C. vinula. Mr. Stainton exhibited the figures of C. erminea larva in 
Freyer's ‘Beitrage zur Geschichte europiischer Schmetterlinge’ and 
‘Neuere Beitrage zur Schmetterlingskunde,’ in Duponchel’s ‘ Icono- 
' graphie des Chenilles,’ and in Boisduval and Rambur’s ‘ Collection Icono- 
graphique et Historique des Chenilles d’Kurope,’ and made remarks on 
the same, especially referring to the difference between Freyer’s and 
Duponchel’s figures. 
Papers read, ée. 
Mr. A. G. Butler communicated the completion of his “ Descriptions of 
new Genera and Species of Heterocerous Lepidoptera from Japan,” treating 
of the Pyrales and Micros. Three new genera and twenty-nine new species 
were described. The descriptions of ten supplementary species belonging 
to various families were also included, a new genus of Notodontide (Platy- 
chasma) and of Ligiide (Macrochthonia) being characterized. In all the 
descriptions of one hundred and eighty new species were included. 
Prof. J. O. Westwood communicated a memoir entitled “‘ Note Diptero- 
logice. No. 6.—On the minute species of dipterous insects, especially 
Muscida, which attack the different kinds of cereal crops”; giving a resumé 
of the descriptions and habits of the various species referred to by Linneus, 
Zetterstedt, Bjerkander, Markwick, Olivier, Herpin, Guerin Méneyille, 
Dagonet, Curtis and himself. Special reference was made to a species 
(Oscinis avene, Bjerk.) which this year had proved very destructive to 
housed oat grains, near Winchester. 
Mr. Fitch remarked that Curtis's Oscinis granarius was most probably 
synonymous with this species. It differed from his O. vastator in having 
the base of the tibia black, not ferruginous, and the larva lived in the 
wheat-grains. Most probably it was the same species which the Rey. O. P, 
Cambridge had found this year in great numbers in Dorsetshire in a loft 
where some barley had been stored. Mr. Fitch also mentioned that on the 
heavy clay-land of Essex it was remarkable that wheat after a whole 
summer's fallow was almost invariably attacked by the young stem-feeding 
larvee of O. vastator, Curt., locally known as “ white maggot.” 
