SOCIETIES. 



251 



rhomboidea I have previously taken singly, but never such numbers as it is 

 in this year. Dicycla oo I have been unable to take where I used to get it 

 three years ago. Triphana fimbria is common. The above remarks refer 

 to woods within ten miles of London. — Walter Dannatt ; " Donning- 

 ton," 75, Vanbrugh Park, Blackheath, S.E., Aug. 21st, 1900. 



SOCIETIES. 



Ent,omological Society of London. — June 6th, 1900. — Mr. George 

 Henry Verrall, President, in the chair. Mr. Hedworth Foulkes, B. Sc, 

 of The College, Reading; and the Rev. H. C. Lang, M.D., of All Saints' 

 Vicarage, Southend-on-Sea, were elected Fellows of the Society. — Mr. 

 G. H. Verrall exhibited a species of the genus Ceratitis, Macleay, 

 apparently identical with Bigot's C.frenicillatus, from the Gold Coast 

 (W. Africa). Mr. Claude Fuller, State Entomologist for the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, Natal, writes of this as "one of our greatest local 

 pests which is responsible for the destruction of tons of fruit ; the 

 larvse infest apples, apricots, peaches, plums, oranges, mangoes, guavas, 

 and I have reared them from the berries of Solanum giganteum.'' Mr. 

 Verrall also exhibited a very handsome Trypetid reared from the fruit 

 of Mimusops caffra by Mr. Claude Fuller at Durban. — Mr. CO. Water- 

 house exhibited specimens of a hemipteron, Aspongopus nepalensis, from 

 Capt. Gorman, I. M.S., who states that they are found under stones in 

 the dry river-beds of Assam. They are much sought after by the 

 natives, who use them for food pounded up and mixed with rice. — Mr. 

 Merrifield exhibited a number of pupte of Aporia cratmji, and called 

 attention to the want of correspondence between the markings on the 

 pupal and those on the imaginal wing. On the latter, as is well known, 

 there are no spots, only darkened nervures, the darkness spreading out 

 a little on the outer margin, but on the former there are black spots, 

 some of them forming an oblique black row across the wing, a series 

 of black marginal spots, and no darkened nervures ; and, when the imago 

 is about to emerge, so that its markings show through the transparent 

 pupal wing, it is seen that its nervures run between the black marginal 

 spots on the pupal wing, which in no way correspond to the broadening 

 out of the marginal terminations of the dark nervures on the imaginal 

 wings. There is great variety in the black markings on the pupal 

 wing ; in some they are few and small, in others they expand and 

 unite, so that more than half the wing is black. The ground colour 

 of the pupa varies from bright greenish-yellow to whitish-grey. As 

 might be expected of an insect whose larva pupates by preference on 

 stems screened by foliage, its colour is not very greatly affected by its 

 surroundings. On comparing some which had had yellow or orange 

 surroundings with others which had had dark ones, it was shown that 

 the former tended to yellow ground colour, and the latter to grey, 

 having also an increase of the dark spots with which the thorax and 

 abdomen are thickly strewn. — Mr. Merrifield also exhibited some en- 

 larged coloured photographs of the green and dark forms of Papilio 

 machaon, obtained by causing the larvae to pupate on green, yellow, or 

 orange surfaces, and on dark ones respectively. In answer to Mr. 



