Entomological Society. — 495 
March 8rd.—The Rev. F. W. Hope, F.R.S. (who had been elected 
President at the adjourned Anniversary Meeting), in the Chair. 
The President nominated W. Spence, Thomas Marshall and W. 
W. Saunders, Esqrs., and Captain Parry, to act as Vice-Presidents. 
Mr. Ingpen exhibited a remarkably fine specimen of amber, or 
gum anime, inclosing a small butterfly and numerous other insects. 
The following papers were read :— 
Extracts from a letter addressed by Captain Boyes to Mr. West- 
wood, containing notices of the habits of the Termites and other in- 
sects of India. 
On carefully examining the nests of the white ants, the hissing 
noise described by some author (Smeathman?) was very distinctly 
heard by Captain Boyes, who ascertained that it was caused by the 
fluttering of the wings when the Termes is in its perfect state. At the 
commencement of the rainy season he several times prevented the 
exit of the perfect insects from their nest, which was in one of his 
room-walls, by pouring spirits of turpentine down the orifices into 
the nest, which kept them prisoners for several days ; afterwards he 
plastered up the orifice with mortar, and after a month’s confine- 
ment he allowed them to swarm, when however they all appeared to 
be of one sex (males), running over the tables in myriads, not a single 
specimen being observed to shed its wings, which is an operation 
voluntarily performed by the females when (as he supposes) they 
have paired, after which also the male sheds his wings. : 
Details, accompanied with coloured drawings, were also given of 
the transformations of a species of Anthrenus, and of several pre- 
viously described species of Sphinx, Bombyx, and butterflies. 
Extracts from a letter addressed to Mr. Westwood by R. Tem- 
pleton, Esq., on the Bite of the Scolopendra in Ceylon. 
Since his previous communication the author had seen two in- 
stances which show that the bites of Scolopendre are not so in- 
nocent as he therein stated them to be. Lieut. M , of strumous 
habit, was bitten by Scolopendra pallipes of his catalogue, on the fore- 
head just above the root of the nose. He states that the pain was 
pungent for at least half an hour or longer; the forehead swelled 
very much, and his upper eyelids so much as to close the eyes com- 
pletely. Cold lotion was applied and soon reduced the swelling, the 
two punctures only remaining. A gunner a few days afterwards 
was bitten by another of the same species on the dorsum of the foot, 
and he states that he was awakened by the pain; the Scolopendra. 
was killed in his bed; two small punctures appeared, his foot near 
the marks swelled a little, but it disappeared totally in a few hours 
by poulticing. He states the pain also to have been as if chillie was 
rubbed into it, but it soon disappeared. His stomach and bowels 
were much out of order at the time—rather bilious or so. 
Mr. Newport, in reference to the poisonous properties of the Sco- 
lopendre, stated that Lithobius was also poisonous, at least to its own 
tribe, as observed by DeGeer ; and that Scolopendra possesses a di- 
stinct secretory apparatus, provided with a poison-gland ending in 
