SOCIETIES. 221 



secured six male specimens of T. piceana. Two males and one female 

 were netted on July 3rd, and twelve specimens, including one female, 

 were captured on July 7tii. On the last-named date most of the 

 examples taken were disturbed from heather under the pines in the 

 afternoon, but scores were seen madly careering around the trees 

 about 7 p.m. S. bifasciana was common on each of the dates men- 

 tioned, but the majority of the specimens netted were not in good con- 

 dition after the thunderstorm. — Kichaed South; 96, Drakefield Eoad, 

 Upper Tooting, S.W. 



SOCIETIES. 



Entomological Society of London. — June 4.th, 1902. — The Rev. 

 Canon Fowler, M.A., D.Sc, F.L.S., President, in the chair. — Mr. 

 Stanley W. Kemp, of 80, Oxford Gardens, Netting Hill, W., was 

 elected a Fellow of the Society. — Mr. H. W. Shepheard-Walwyn ex- 

 hibited a recently-emerged male specimen of Lamjndes baticus taken at 

 Winchester in September, 1899, and two varieties of Lycmia icarus. — 

 Mr. C. P. Pickett exhibited one asymmetrical male and two females of 

 Dilina tilice, and a series of the same insect showing great variation of 

 colour and marking, bred during May, 1902. — Mr. F. Merrifield showed 

 enlarged photographs of larvae of Hygrochroa syringaria. The larva is 

 usually represented in an attitude in which it is practically never seen, 

 crawling in an elongated form with its pair of long fleshy dorsal tubercles 

 conspicuously projecting. But its habit is not to crawl, except in the 

 dark, when it cannot be seen. All day it clings to the edge of a leaf 

 or to a twig, in an attitude about as unlike a caterpillar good for a bird 

 to eat as anything can well be, presenting a quadrangular form, some- 

 thing like a square hassock with tassels at the corners, and in one or 

 two other places ; the body is bent so as to form four right angles, the 

 head and the anal segments forming two of the tassels, and the rest of 

 the body forming a square from which the pair of long tubercles 

 project at one corner, the other dorsal tubercles making other projec- 

 tions. Usually the parts of the body are so closely appressed that no 

 daylight is visible between them, even when seen broadside against the 

 light, which can rarely happen in nature. The resting attitude, un- 

 like that of the Selenias, is practically the same in all stages of growth, 

 and at all ages it is especially addicted to hanging down a few inches 

 suspended by a silken thread, still preserving the hunched-up quad- 

 rangular form. Compared with the very dissimilar but equally mis- 

 leading attitudes of other larvse — such as the rigid A. betularia or the 

 thorn-like Selenia — it seems an interesting illustration of the very 

 different forms of disguise by which the result of escape from danger is 

 attained. Mr. Merrifield also showed photographs of the dark-brown 

 bronzy pupa of this species, in its hammock of open network of silk, 

 very slight but exceedingly strong, from the bottom of which the larval 

 skin is projected, not shortened and compressed, but pushed through 

 the network, and hanging down like a long tail, so as apparently to 

 attain the same end as in the larval stages, the disguising of its real 

 nature; it looks very unlike an ordinary pupa. — Professor E. B. 

 Poulton, F.R.S., exhibited a lantern-slide showing the perfect protec- 



