Zoological Society. 59 



the CoiCopterous genus Rhipidius { = Symbius) , which is parasitic 

 in Cockroaches, as the Strepsiptera in Bees and Wasps, and the 

 vermiform female of which does not quit the body of the animal 

 in which it has been developed, any more than the worm -like 

 female of the Strepsiptera. But the Strepsiptera agree with the 

 Meloi'dse {Meloe and Sitaris, and probably also with Rhipidius, 

 the metamorphosis of which is not completely known) in the 

 very remarkable process of development named hypermetamor- 

 phosis by Fabre, which has hitherto been observed in this form 

 only in the Meloidse and Strepsiptera — a process which consists 

 in the production from the e^^ of a provisory larva, destined to 

 transfer the animal into those conditions under which it is 

 further developed, and in the production from this provisory 

 larva, at the first moult, of a second definitive larva of totally 

 difi'erent form. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL. SOCIETY. 



April 12, 1864.— E.W. H. Holdsworth, Esq., in the Chair. 

 Notes on the Urotrichus. By J. K. Lord, F.Z.S. 



Urotrichus Gibbsii, Baird. 



Hab. Western side of Cascade Mountains, Sumass Prairie, near 

 Eraser River. 



This singular little animal, which appears to be an intermediate link 

 between the Shrew and the Mole, is at present only known as an 

 inhabitant of two parts of the world, widely removed from each other 

 — the one spot being the western slope of the Cascade Mountains in 

 North-west America, the other Japan. There are, as far as I know, 

 but two specimens extant from the Cascade Mountains, — one in the 

 Smithsonian Museum at Washington ; the other, a very fine speci- 

 men, that I have recently brought home, and which is now in the 

 British Museum. I have carefully compared the Japanese Urotri- 

 chus with his brother from the western wilds, and can find no diff'er- 

 ence whatever, either generically or specifically ; in shape, size, and 

 colour they are exactly alike. 



The Urotrichus is of a bluish black when fresh, but in the dried 

 specimens sooty brown. The hair is lustrous and where it reflects 

 the light has a hoary appearance, and, like that of the Mole, can be 

 smoothed in either direction. This is a wise and admirable arrange- 

 ment, as it enables him to back through his underground roads, as 

 well as to go through them head first. His nose or snout is very cu- 

 rious, and much like that of a pig, only that it is lengthened out into 

 a cylindrical tube covered with short thick hairs, and terminating in 

 a naked fleshy kind of bulb or gland ; this gland is pierced by two 

 minute holes, which are the nostrils. Each nostril has a little fold 



