XXXIX 
of insect was modified by existing circumstances, but that, on the 
contrary, it was expressly created in a form most fitted for per- 
forming its allotted task in the great work of the Creation. In 
like manner, I am unable to adopt the theory of the gradual 
evolution of the varied forms of larva life from a single proto- 
type — an opinion as difficult, however, to disprove as it is 
impossible to prove. 
I may here call attention to a Teleological memoir by the Eev. 
T. R. Stebbing in the ' Quarterly Journal of Science.' 
During the past year two very important collections have been 
dispersed ; that of Mr. Thomas Norris, of Eedvales, near Man- 
chester, had been formed at unlimited expense, and contained 
.many very fine and rare insects, amongst which was the Lamia 
Norrisii, figured and described by myself in the Transactions of 
our Society. This grand and still unique insect has passed into 
the collection of Count Mniszech, of Paris. The other collection, 
that of Mr.W, Wilson Saunders, was far more important and widely 
known, and was especially valuable as containing the greater 
portion of the species collected by Mr. Wallace in the Malayan 
Archipelago. By the liberality of Mrs. Hope, the Orthoptera and 
Heterocerous Lepidoptera (containing the whole of the types 
described by Mr. Walker in the Proceedings of the Linnean 
Society) have been added to the Hopeian Collections at Oxford. 
The constant liberality and kindness shown by Mr. Saunders on 
all occasions, both to the Entomological Society and its individual 
members, cannot but inspire great regret at the necessity for the 
dispersion of his noble collection. 
An interesting memoir on the organ of the tracheae in various 
aquatic insects, especially the Perlidee, by Herr Gerstaecker, is 
given in the ' Sitzungs-Bericht' of the Natural History Society of 
Berlin of the 21st October last. The remarkable genus Pteron- 
arcys of Newman has especially led to these remarks by Dr. 
Gerstaecker, which possess much interest in connection with the 
question of the real homologies of the abnormal appendages of 
several other insects ; and here I may refer to the very interesting 
genus Scolopendrella, which has on the under side of each seg- 
ment a pair of appendages closely resembling those of the Lepis- 
midse, — " a fact," as Sir John Lubbock shrewdly remarks, " which 
suggests doubts whether the subabdominal appendages of that 
group really represent the legs of Myriapoda." — Mon. Thysan. 
p. 57. 
