Linncean Society. 339 



British Coleoptera delineated, consisting of Figures of all the Genera 

 of British Beetles drawn in outline. By W. Spry, M.E.S., edited 

 by W. E. Shuckard, Lib. R.S. Nos. 1—6. To be continued 

 Monthly, each Number containing Six Plates and Illustrating 

 nearly fifty Genera. 



This work, of which six numbers have regularly appeared, is adapted 

 to serve as an illustration to the different works on the subject pub- 

 lished without plates. The figures of the insects are faithfully and 

 correctly drawn, considering at the same time the low price at which 

 they are published, scarcely three farthings a genus. They are not 

 indeed to be compared to the artistical plates of Curtis ; but they are 

 accurate enough to serve the purposes for which they are intended, 

 and are executed in a style of lithography which we have not before 

 seen employed in this country though much used on the continent 

 for natural history publications, and are well adapted for the pur- 

 pose of illustration. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



LINN^AN SOCIETY. 



December 3. — Edward Forster, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



The Rev. W. S. Hore exhibited a specimen of a remarkable va- 

 riety of Duck, supposed to be hybrid between the Anas Boschas 

 and Anas acuta of Linnaeus. 



Read, " Descriptions of three Vegetable Monstrosities lately found 

 at York." By the Rev. W. Hincks, M.A., F.L.S. 



Two of these monstrosities occur in species of Iris, and much re- 

 semble each other. The species are I. versicolor and /. sambucina. 

 They have 5 parts in each circle, except that the inner circle of pe- 

 tals consists of 4 in one instance and only 3 in the other. It is suf- 

 ficiently manifest that they are produced by the union of two flowers 

 to form each, and they lead to the conclusion that when Irises with 

 4 parts in each circle occur (which are not very uncommon) they are 

 unions of two flowers, one-third part of each having perished in the 

 junction. Various other monstrosities consisting in the union of 

 two flowers were compared with the subjects of the description, par- 

 ticularly some of CEnothera, flowers having 7 petals, 14 stamens, 

 and 7 stigmas, where the parts preserved in the union are in exactly 

 the same proportion as in the Irises. 



The third specimen described as a monstrous union of 4 flowers 



2 B 2 



