20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIED ENTOMdLOGICAI, MEETING 



legist; has also very kiudly promised to tell us something about his work 

 on pebrine, and his paper will be given in the form of an evemng lecture. 



Subject VIII (Life-histories and Bionomics) calls for little remark, as 

 the titles of the papers are self-explanatory, and the same appUes to 

 Subject IX (Collection and Preservation of Specimens). Under the 

 latter subject we have one paper which was received too late for inclusion 

 in the printed programme and that is one by Dr. David Sharp, F.R.S., 

 on the importance of collecting insects. Dr. Sharp's name is well known 

 to all of you as the author of the two volumes on Insects in the " Cam- 

 bridge Natural Histoiy" and we are greatly indebted to him for con- 

 tributing this paper to oui Meeting. 



Subject X (Systematic Entomology) has brought us several interest- 

 ing papers, amongst which I shall call your special attention to the one- 

 by Mr. E. Meyrick, F.R.S., on our present knowledge of Indian Micro- 

 lepidoptera. Mr. Meyrick, as you know, has been working on cur species 

 for the last fifteen years, during which he has described over two thousand 

 novelties from India, and we are greatly indebted to h'm for sending us a 

 very valuable and interesting note on his special subject. 



Captain de Mello is giving us a paper on some Trichonymphid para- 

 sites of Indian Termites. This is a subject which Hes, strictly speaking, 

 beyond the borderland of Entomology but which is yet of considerable 

 interest to us from an entomological point of view. These curious 

 protozoan parasites which infest the interior economy of some (but by 

 no means all) termites seem to be restricted to those termites belonging 

 to the more primitive groups. Why this is so, it is difficult to say, but 

 it is possible that further investigat'on of these Trichonymphid parasites 

 may throw some Ught on the past history and relationships of their 

 hosts. Captain de Mello is describing a new species of Nyctoiheriis also 

 found in an Indian termite. Now, it is quite interesting, as Dobell has 

 pointed out in the case of Nyctothervs termitis (found in Calotermes 

 militaris at Peradeniya), to note that the only other known host of a 

 Nyctotherus is a cockroach, Slylopyga orientalis, and as we know on 

 other grounds that the termites and cockroaches are groups not remotely- 

 allied to one another it is decidedly a matter of entomolosical interest 

 for us to hear something about these parasites and to see how a small 

 fact of this nature fits into its natural place in our knowledge of the 

 relationships of their insect hosts. It is only one more example of the 

 fact that an accurate observation apparently trivial in itself so long as 

 it is isolated, when added .to other similar observations, joins up with 

 them to build up a coherent whole. 



The question of preparing and issuing a general Catalogue of all 

 known Indian insects also comes under this Section. The need for such 



