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of pollen by the bees themselves, having captured several in the very act of eating it 
on the alighting-boards or entrances to the hives. Microscopical examination showed 
that in each instance the stomach was filled with pollen-grains; and Mr. Tegetmeier 
thought there was no good ground for suspecting that the pollen thus eaten was after- 
wards disgorged with the honey iu the stomach as food for the larve. 
Mr. M‘Lachlan exhibited a case-bearing larva which had been found by Mr. 
Douglas at Box Hill, apparently feeding on wild thyme. Prof. Westwood was of 
Opinion that it was a larva of the Coleopterous genus Clythra. 
Mr, Bates read the following extract from a letter recently received by him from 
Mr. Roland Trimen, of Cape Town :-— 
“T have just noticed a very remarkable instance of close imitation of a flower by a 
spider. Leptoneura Clytns, a handsome Satyrus, is very abundant here just now. 
Flowers are rather scarce at this season, and a tall straggling plant with yellow com- 
posite flowers attracts these butterflies, with many other insects. As I approached a 
plant upon which were several Clytus, [ observed that two specimens did not fly off 
with the others, and found that each was in the clutches of a bright yellow spider. 
I removed one of these butterflies, and as the spider shrunk up its limbs on the flower, 
which it equals in size, it was scarcely distinguishable, so exactly similar was it in 
colour. But it was after this that it assumed its astonishing likeness to the flower. 
Recovering from its alarm (I suppose), it slowly moved to the side of the flower, and, 
holding on to the stalk by its two hindmost pairs of legs, extended the two front pairs 
upwards and laterally. In this position it was scarcely possible to believe that it was 
not a flower seen in profile, the rounded abdomen representing the central mass of 
florets, and the extended legs the ray-florets, while, to complete the illusion, the front 
femora, appressed to the thorax, have each a longitudinal red stripe which represents 
the ferruginous stripe on the sepals of the flower! As the other spider also assumed 
the same attitude when robbed of his butterfly, and as both retained it for a consider- 
able time (I left them so), I conclude that it is their ordinary mode of waiting for 
their prey. I enclose the flower, and shall be glad to hear its name.” 
Mr. Bates added that the flower was the Senecio pubigerus of Linneus, a very 
common road-side weed-in dry ground, &c., about Cape Town, and the spider 
belonged to the genus Salticus; he considered this case of mimetic resemblance 
peculiarly valuable, since the purpose or object of the imitation was so plainly 
manifest. 
Major Parry sent for exhibition a male specimen (var. minor) of Odontolabis 
Stevensii, the left antenna of which was trifid from the third joint, having three 
distinct clave, whilst the right antenna was bifid from the extremity of the basal joint; 
one of the latter limbs appeared to have been fractured, and in consequence the right 
antenna did not exhibit two perfect clave. Major Parry communicated. the following 
note :— 
“1 beg to submit to the Meeting a brief account of an extraordinary and interesting 
case of monstrosity produced in the antenne of Odontolabis Stevensii, one of the 
Lucanvid Coleoptera, the right antenna being fureate from the apex of the basal joint, 
whilst the left one exhibits a bifureate process, issuing from the third joint, that is to 
say, the former being abnormal from the basal and the latter from the third joint; the 
‘left antenna, moreover, possesses three distinct clave, the right one being in this respect 
in its normal state, exhibiting, however, the partial development of a second one. In 
