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victim, I covered the pair with a ghiss bowl. But this alarmed 

 the fly and it released its hold and refused to renew the attack. 

 So I bottled the .specimens and have been examining them this 

 morning. I find that the segmental rings of the Termite are 

 partially separated and that there is a distinct wound in the 

 soft intersegmental tissue, from which the juices of the body 

 are exuding. I next dissected out the tongue of the fly and 

 — after boiling in liq. potass. — mounted it in glycerine. I 

 was interested to find that — far from being unarmed — there is 

 quite a battery of strong chitinous teeth and slender lancet- 

 like points on the inner face of the apical lobes. There is first 

 a stout median conical tooth. Near the centre of each lobe 

 are two very dense stout curved teeth, the outermost bidentate, 

 the inner one with small denticule on one side. Slightly 

 above this is a series of smaller bidentate teeth — two of them 

 mesad and one laterad of the larger teeth. Above these again 

 is a close series of some thii'teen or more sharply-pointed 

 ligulate processes. 



" In view of these very effective-looking weapons, it can 

 scarcely be maintained that the fly is incapable of inflicting 

 a wound. 



" As this question was brought prominently before the 

 public in your recent exhaustive paper on predatory insects, 

 you might — if you consider these notes of sufiicient interest — 

 read them at a meeting of the Entomological Society." 



Professor Poulton said that he had shown the prepai'ation 

 to Colonel J. W. Yerbury and to Mr. J. E. Collin, both of 

 whom had compared the structure to that of the tongue in 

 such Diptera as Caricca tigrina, F., and Stoinoxys cdlcitrans, 

 supporting the conclusion that Odiromyia jejuna possessed 

 similar habits and powers of attack. 



Pcqiers. 



Mr. J. E. Collin communicated '* The Systematic Aflinities 

 of the Phoridae, and of several Brachycerous Families in the 

 Diptera," by Mr. W. Wesche, F.R.M.S. 



Dr. T. A. Chapman, M.D., F.Z.S., read a paper on 

 " Stenoptilia grandis, n. sp." 



