December 21, 1893] 



NATURE 



191 



to those exhibited had been taken rather freely during the past 

 autumn in Berkshire, and it was susjgested that they might be 

 hybrids between D. i-itbigi)ica and C. vxccinii. — Mr L)vell- 

 Keays exhibited a series of Lyciena alexis, with coafluent spots on 

 the under sides of the front wings. He drew attention to the 

 fact that the insects were all taken within a short radius, and 

 probably were in the ratio of about one in forty with reference 

 to the ordinary form. All the examples, with one exception, 

 were females. Mr. Lovell-Keays remarked that he had some 

 years ago met with a similar brood near Weymouth, in which 

 the confluent spots were entirely confined to females. Prof. 

 S. H. Scudder, of Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A., stated that 

 he had observed the occurrence of broods of allied species 

 with suffused spots in America. — -Mr. C. O. Waterhouse 

 exhibited the type specimen of Coptomia opalina of Gory, 

 from the Hope Collection at Oxford, and pointed out 

 that it was quite distinct from C. mutabilis, W. Mr. Water- 

 house also called attention to Silpha atoniaria of Linnsus 

 (Syst. Nat., ed. xii., i., p. 574), a Swedish species which 

 appeared to have escaped notice, and was not included 

 in any catalogue. The type is still extant in the Linnean 

 cabinet, and he said he was of opinion that it was Olibrns 

 geminiis of our collections, but he had not had an opportunity 

 of making a critical examination. He also exhibited male and 

 female specimens of a Helopeltis (the Tea- Bug), which he con- 

 sidered a distinct species, occurring only in Assam. — Mr. 

 M. Jacoby exhibited certain species and varieties of the 

 genus Ceroglossiis from Chili, and Dr. D. Sharp, Mr. J. J. 

 Walker, and Mr. Champion made remarks on their geo- 

 graphical distribution. — Prof. Scudder exhibited the type spe- 

 cimen of a fossil butterfly, Pyodryas persephone, found in beds 

 of Tertiary Age at Florissant, Colorado. He said the species 

 belonged to the Nymphalida:, and the specimen was remark- 

 able as being in more perfect condition than any of those from 

 the European Tertiaries. He also stated that he had found a 

 bed near the White River on the borders of Utah, in which 

 insects were even more abundant than in the Florissant 

 beds. Dr. Sharp, Mr. Kirby, Mr. H. Goss, and the President 

 took part in the discussion which ensued. — Mr. Goss exhibited 

 hybernating larvse of Spilothyrus alcea:, which had been 

 sent to him by Mr. F. Bromilow from St. Maurice, Nice. Mr. 

 W. F. H. Blandford read a paper entitled "The Rhyncho- 

 phorous Coleoptera of Japan." The President, Dr. Sharp. Mr. 

 Champion, Mr. iNIcLachlan, and Mr. J. J. Walker took part 

 in the discussion which ensued concerning the distribution of 

 the group and the admixture of Palsearctic and Oriental forms. 

 — Mr. G. T. Bethune-Baker read a paper entitled " Notes on 

 some Lepidoptera received from the neighbourhood of 

 Alexandria," and exhibited the specimens described. Mr. 

 McLachlan suggested that the scarcity of insects in Egypt was 

 possibly to be accounted for by the fact that much of the country 

 was under water for a considerable portion of the year ; and 

 Dr. Sharp said that another cause of the scarcity was the culti- 

 vation of every available piece of land for centuries past. — Mr. 

 C. O. Waterhouse rf ad a paper entitled " Further Observations 

 on the Tea- Bugs {Helopeltis) of India." — Dr. F. A. Dixey 

 communicated a paper entitled " On the Phylogeny of the 

 PierincE, as illustrated by their wing-markings and geographical 

 distribution." 



Geological Society, -December 6. — W. H. Hudleston, 

 F. R. S., President, in the chair. The following communica- 

 tions were read : — Ttie Purbeck beds of the Vale of Wardour, by 

 the Rev. W. R. Andrews and Mr. A. J. Jukes- Browne. The 

 authors have obtained better evidence than previously existed 

 for calculating the thicknesses of the several parts of the Purbeck 

 series in the Vale of Wardour, and compared the different sub- 

 divisions as developed in that vale with those exposed in other 

 • localities. The average thickness of the Lower Purbeck strata 

 was given as 70 feet, of the Middle Purbeck beds about 32 

 feet, and of Upper Purbeck strata at least 66 feet. A compari- 

 son was instituted between the Purbeck beds of the Vale of 

 Wardour and those of the Dorset coast, &c., and some remarks 

 were made upon the physical conditions under which the beds 

 were deposited A discussion followed, in which the President, 

 Prof J. F. Blake, Prof. T. Rupert Jones, and Mr. H. B. 

 Woodward to )k part. The Rev. W. R. Andrews briefly re- 

 plied. — On a picrite and other associated rocks at Birmon, near 

 Edinburgh, by Mr. Horace W. Monckton. The object of this 

 paper was to describe a cutting on a new railway in Birnton 

 Park, where there is an excellent exposure of picrite. It con- 



NO. I -60. VOL. 49J 



sisls of serpentinised olivine, augite, mica, iron oxide, and a 

 little plagioclase-felspar, with a variable amount of insterstitial 

 matter. In many respects it comes very near to the picrite of 

 Inchcolm, which island is 4}, miles north of Barnton cutting It 

 differs from the picrite of Bathgate, and the probability is that 

 the Barnton rock is an offshoot from the same magma as that 

 which supplied the Inchcolm rock. Besides the picrite other 

 igneous rocks from the same cutting were described — in par- 

 ticular, a rock with porphyritic crystals of a green mineral re- 

 placing olivine, or more probably augite, and a great quantity 

 uf brown mica in small flakes and crystals. It was suggested 

 that the name of niica-porphyrite might be given to this rock. 

 Sir James Maitland made some remarks upon the paper. — On a 

 variety of Ammonites (Stephaiioceras) subai-matits, young, from 

 the Upper Lias of Whitby, by the same author. The 

 author described an ammonite found by himself in 1874 near 

 Sandsend, three miles north-west of Whitby. He thought it 

 was not actually in situ, but lying with a number of nodules on 

 the floor of an old alum-pit, although he had no doubt that it 

 was from the alum shale of the Upper Lias. A peculiar 

 arrangement of the costs as they cross the siphonal area dis- 

 tinguishes the specimen from other Whitby ammonites known 

 to the author. It bears a strong resemblance to a shell figured 

 ^s A. stibarmatiis by D'Orbigny (" Terr. Jurass." pi. Ixxvii.), 

 but is unlike the figures of that species given by other authors. 



Linnean Society, December 7. — Prof Stewart, President, 

 in the chair. — Mr. C. T. Druery exhibited and made remarks 

 upon a new example of apospory in Scolopendrium vulgare, and 

 Prof. Bower brought forward a similar case in Trichoinanei 

 Kaidfussii. Mr. George Brebner exhibited some new and rare 

 British Algse, including Haplospora globosa, Tilopteris IlTer- 

 tensii, Eciocarpus tornenlosoides, and Polysiphonia spinulosa 

 var. tnajo): Mr. F. Enoch, with the aid of the oxyhydrogen 

 lantern, exhibited the various stages of development of the 

 black currant mite, Phytopttis ribis, and gave an interesting 

 account of its life history. — Mr. Thomas Christy exhibited a 

 gigantic reed-like leaf froui the Zambesi, with drawings of sec- 

 tions. Ilappearedto bedAWedtoSaiisevieri icylindrica, butdiffered 

 conspicuously in the greater size of the leaves, which measured 

 about 9 feet in length, instead of from 18 inches to 3 feet. The 

 remarkably tough and strong fibre which it produces is con- 

 sidered to be of great commercial value, being equal to the 

 best Sansevieria hemp.-^Mr. W. F. Kirby read a poper on the 

 dragon-flies of Ceylon, with descriptions of some new species. 

 The paper was based chiefly upon a collection made by Colonel 

 Yerbury, which he had presented to the British Museum. 

 Seventy-five species were enumerated, of which fifty-five had 

 been collected by Colonel Yerbury. Another collection, made 

 in Ceylon by Mr. E. Green, had been dealt with in a previous 

 paper [Proc. Zool. Soc. 1891, pp. 203-206), — On behalf of 

 Signor Martelli, the secretary read a paper on the cause of 

 the fall of the corolla in Verbasctim, which gave rise to an in- 

 teresting discussion. The meeting adjourned to December 21. 



Paris. 

 Academy of Sciences, December 11. — M. de Lacaze- 

 Duthiers in the chair. — On the sublimation of the red and yellow 

 iodides of mercury, by M. Berthelot. — Research on the struc- 

 ture of feathers, by M. C. Sappey. — The densities of saturated 

 vapours, and their relation to the laws of condensation and 

 vaporisation of the solvents, by M. F. M. Raoult. — On the 

 burning of moor and forest lands in Gironde, and the excep- 

 tional drought during the spring and summer of this year, by 

 MM. G. Rayet and G. Clavel. The long drought of the spring 

 and summer of this year has favoured the production and 

 extension of fires in the pine woods of the department of 

 Gironde. In the 184 days between March I and September I, 

 132 (ires happened in the woods of Gironde, destroying 35,589 

 hectares of forest land, and doing damige to the extent of six 

 million francs. Similar disasters occurred in 1870, and they 

 have led the authors to look up the rainfall observations for the 

 last 122 years for purposes of comparison. Among other points 

 brought out by the investigation is that only two springs, 

 1716 and 1768, were drier than that of 1893. The summer of 

 this year, however, only ranked thirteenth in order of dryness. 

 — Solar observations made during the --econd and third quarters 

 of 1893, by Prof. Tacchini (see Our Astronomical Column). — 

 On the surfaces of which the lines of curvature of a system are 

 plane and equal, by R. T. Caronnet. — On the characters of 

 convergence of series, by M. Hadamard. — Low wave-length 



