( xcv ) 



President exhibited a species of Osmia and its cell, and read 

 the following note : — " Three and a half years ago, in the early 

 spring of 1909, I picked up beside a little stream at Jericho, 

 and afterwards brought to one of these meetings for exhibi- 

 tion, a hollow stem of Zizyphus spina-Christi, containing a series 

 of mud-cells which I conjectured to be the work of some 

 rather large Osmia sp., possibly tridentata. I opened one and 

 found in it a fat white larva, so I put the stem into a muslin 

 bag, hung it up on a nail, and hoped that imagines would 

 emerge in the coming summer. Nothing however occurred 

 either in 1909, 1910, or 1911; and I took it for granted that 

 the grubs had all perished. However to my surprise and 

 pleasure I found on returning from the Oxford Congress this 

 year, that one of the cells had produced an Osmia $ of a 

 species which I had never seen before, but which, I think, 

 must be the Osmia indiyotea of Morawitz. I have brought 

 the cell and the insect with me ; but you will hardly be able 

 to see by this light the pretty iridescent or sub-metallic color- 

 ation of its abdomen. It is knoAvn that Osmia spp. will 

 sometimes wait through a year or more before emergence. 

 F. Smith once received some Osmia cells from Scotland which 

 produced nothing for some time ; but ultimately bees appeared, 

 after a year or so in the British Museum. This Osmia, how- 

 ever, has been extraordinarily patient ; and I do not despair 

 of finding something more in the bag next year." 



Mr. C. 0. Watekhouse observed that in cases of delayed 

 emergence in bees, it was in the larval, not in the pupal state 

 that they passed the interval, and that the larva was capable 

 of existing thus for years without food. 



Aberration of Brenthis selbne. — Mr. H. Baker Sly 

 exhibited a very dark example of Brenthis selene, having the 

 under-wings clouded with dark brown all over, except for a 

 slightly lighter shaded spot in the middle, and the upper- 

 wings very heavily clouded with dark brown ; it was taken in 

 Worth Forest, Sussex, May 26, 1912. He also showed a 

 specimen of Ejiinephele janira, one upper-wing having a white 

 blotch at the tip, the under-wing on the same side also 

 having a white streak, taken at Box Hill, August 11, 

 1912. 



