( 16 ) 



the climate of Europe in Oligocene times was tropical or 

 sub-tropical. 



Living Blatta. — The President exhibited a living example 

 of Blatta found in bananas from Mexico. Mr. Shelford said 

 he thought the species to be PancMora nivea, Linn. 



Ehinoceros bicornis followed by extraordinary CEstrid 

 FLIES {SjyatMcera) mimetic of a large species of Salids 

 {Pominlidec). — Professor E. B. Poulton, F K.S,, said that 

 I I when he visited Stockholm last May in connection with the 



Linntean Jubilee, Professor Yngve Sjostedt had shown him a 

 number of large Dipterous larva; which he had obtained from 



[xxx 

 the stomach of Rhinoceros bicornis during his Kilimanjaro- 

 Meru Expedition in 1905-6. Professor Sjostedt had managed 

 to breed a single imago, and it was a wonderful Salius-Uke 

 insect, blue-black with orange legs like its model — large, but 

 with something of the slender build of a Fossor. Professor 

 Sjostedt had recently published an interesting paper on the 

 (Estrichv of his expedition (Kiinigl. Schwedisch. Acad. Wissen- 

 schaft., Uppsala 1908, 10. Diptera, 2. (Estridai, p. 11). In this 

 memoir he had described and figured the species as Spathicera 

 vieruensis. In addition to this species, known in larval pupal 

 and perfect states, two other species had been named from 

 larvae found in the digestive tract of the same mammal : — 

 Spatldcera (Gyrostigma) conjungens, Enderl., and S. (G.) 

 rhinocerontis bicornis^ Bi-auer — neither known in any later 

 stage. Up to the present time no observation had been 

 recorded of any ffistrid in the perfect state associated with 

 or following Bhinoceros bicornis. But now only a few days 

 ago the speaker had received a letter from Mr. S. A. Neave^ 

 M.A., B.Sc, F.E.S., from N.E. Rhodesia, describing what 

 was evidently a fly of the genus Sj^athicera, as persistently 

 following 7?. bicornis in that district. He reproduced the 

 account in Mr. Neave's own words : — 



" Upper Luuiigira Valley, 



"Feb. 20, 190S. 

 " The other day I shot a fine Bull Rhinoceros. It was 

 accompanied by three very large and extraordinary flies. 

 They refused to leave its carcase, and were easily caught 



