442 Miscellaneous. 



Newport to have been formed by M. Gervais into the genus Planiuliis, 

 but with insufficient characters. He also stated, in reference to the 

 question of the habits of these insects and the best modes of their 

 destruction, that they deposit their eggs from March to May, after 

 which there is an interval of a few months, a second period of ovi- 

 position being in July and August. Mr. Ingpen doubted whether 

 these insects ever attack perfectly healthy plants, but Mr. Saunders 

 mentioned various instances of an opposite character. 



Tlie following papers were read : — 



Monograph of the Dipterous genus Ceria. By \V. "W. Saunders, 

 Esq., F.L.S. (since published in the first part of the fourth volume 

 of the Transactions of the Society). 



A notice respecting the Prizes offered by the Rev. F. W. Hope. 



Observations on the sexual distinctions and mode of copulation 

 of an Indian species of Mutilla. By Captain Boys. 



Mr. Westwood having suggested that one of the statements in 

 Captain Boys's letter respecting the transporting of prey bv a winged 

 Mutilla, appeared to him to apply to a winged female Scolia rather 

 than to a winged male Mutilla, as no male fossorial hymenopterous 

 insect had been hitherto observed to possess such habits, Mr. Double- 

 day stated that he had captured many specimens of Monedula in the 

 United States in the act of capturing gad-flies (Tabani), whence they 

 are termed horse-guards, and that all his specimens proved to be 

 males. 



Mr. Westwood exhibited drawings of and made some observations 

 upon the portable nests of the larvae of different species of Chlamys. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



—On the Fossil Cycadese in gene^'ul, and especially on those which are 

 found in Silesia. By Prof. Gceppert*. 



The author commences his memoir by observing that, notwithstand- 

 ing the considerable increase of late in the number of species which 

 compose the fossil Cycadece, the classification established in 1828 by 

 M. Ad. Brongniart, in his ' Prodrome des Vegetaux Fossiles,' still 

 suffices, with a few modifications, for the wants of the new interca- 

 lations. 



The great majority of the fossil Cycadece known up to the present 

 time belong to the Jurassic formation ; those which the author col- 

 lected in Silesia are found in the deposits of argillaceous iron of 

 Upper Silesia, deposits which form part of the above-mentioned for- 

 mation. After passing in review the attempts which, since the pub- 

 lication of the ' Prodromus ' of M. Ad. Brongniart, have been made 

 to establish a new classification of the Cycadece, M. Goeppert enume- 

 rates the whole of these fossil vegetables, distributed according to 



* Being an abstract drawn up by M. TchihatcliefF, and laid before the 

 French Geological Society, Nov. 18, 1841. 



