44 



December 2, 1850, 

 G. R. Waterhouse, Esq., President, in the chair. 



The following donations were announced and thanks ordered to he given to the 

 respective donors ; ' The Zoologist,' for December ; presented by the Editor. ' Ento- 

 mologische Zeitung,' for October and November ; by the Entomological Society of 

 Stettin. ' Separat-Abdruck der Zeitschrift der Entomologische Gesellschaft zu 

 Breslau;' by Herr Zeller, Honorary Foreign Member. ' Abhandlungen de Zoolo- 

 gisch-Miueralogischen Vereins zu Regensburg ;' by Dr. Herrich-Schaffer: and an 

 ' Article on the Fulgorellas ;' by Dr. Schaum. Also five specimens of Cheimatobia 

 boreata ; presented by Nicholas Cooke, Esq. 



John Gray, Esq., of Wheatfield House, near Bolton, and J. Newman Tweedy, 

 Esq., of 47, Montagu Square, were balloted for, and elected Members of the Society. 



The President announced that the requisite number of subscribers for the ' Insecta 

 Biitaunica' being nearly obtained, the committee had decided to proceed with the 

 publication of the series, and that the first volume would be published early in 1851. 



Mr. Evans exhibited a Lampyris from Rio de Janeiro, and read the following ex- 

 tract of a letter, dated Rio de Janeiro, November 12th, 1849. 



" I send you at last a specimen of the Rio firefly, which I certify to having captured 

 myself while in the act of emitting light, and furlber, that having taken it home, I 

 placed it under a tumbler in a dark room, and was enabled, by the light it emitted, to 

 read letters printed on a paper on which the glass was put. P.S. — Near the caudal 

 extremity underneath, is a white enamel-like spot, which emits the light. — F. Peii- 



ncllij'.'' 



Mr. Evans communicated an extract from the Sydney Morning Herald, of the 

 22nd of June last, announcing the establishment, in that city, of the Australian So- 

 ciety for the investigation of scientific subjects, and stating that at the first meeting, 

 the attention of the Society was directed by the Rev. G. E. Turner, to a grub, which 

 is found in vines, and excites some alarm among the vine-growers of the colony. 



Mr. Evans exhibited a Scolopendra electrica, and Mr. Westwood referring to its 

 luminous properties, stated as a fact that had come within his own observation, that 

 Lithobius forcipatus also emitted light. 



Mr. S. Stevens exhibited some fine specimens of the variety of Ornithoptera Pria- 

 mus, from Richmond River, New Holland, and also that singular Lepidopterous in- 

 sect, Mynnecopsis Eumenides, Newm., which so resembles a Hymenopterous insect. 



Mr. Stainton exhibited five new species of British Tineidae : viz., Coleophora par- 

 titella, Z., C. vulnerariae, Z., C. lithargyrinella, Z, C. juncicolella, Sta., and Ela- 

 chista Treitschkeella, F-v-R., and read the following notice, by Mr. Jordan, of a small 

 Lepidopterous larva (probably of the genus Goniodoma). 



" During a short excursion in Kent, in the month of August last, T gathered and 

 brought to town amongst other wild flowers, several specimens of Origanum vulgare. 

 On the next day, as I was looking at the flowers, two buds from one of the heads of 

 this plant seemed to be crawling about, and on closer examination, it proved that 

 these two were in reality the tents of larvae of some minute Lepidopterous insect. 

 They so exactly resembled a single flower-bud of the Origanum, that it was difficult to 

 distinguish them when at rest, from those in the head around them ; the lower part of 



