The Zoologist — March, 1866. 149 



a gigantic Vanessa Cardui, measuring 2 inches and 10 lines in expanse, and having 

 a black spot in the pale band at the anal angle of the anterior wings; a variety of 

 Argynnis Selene, wanting many of the ordinary black markings of the upper side, and 

 with the underside of the hind wings very abnormal; a female Satyrus Titliouus 

 having an additional ocellated spot on the anterior wings ; a female Agrolis segetum, 

 with the anterior wings nearly black; and a variety of Tiiphiena orbona with mottled 

 anterior wings, and with the posterior wings very pale yellow. 



Mr. S. Stevens exhibited a male of Papilio Seniperi, from the Philippines, with 

 black wings and a bright scarlet body ; the body of the female being grey. 



Prof. Weslwood exhibited a pair of the dog-tick, Ixodes plumbeus, which he had 

 kept without food in a glass tube for twelve months, having taken them away with 

 him from the Meeting of this Society held on the 6th February, 1865, (see ' Proceed- 

 ings,' 1865, p. 82). Shortly afterwards numbers of young ones were observed in the 

 tube, but they soon died ; the tube however was now again thronged with young in 

 the hexapod state. The female parent was no longer living. 



Prof. Westwood also exhibited a larva with long filaments at the sides of the 

 body, which he at first thought to be Neuropterous (Sialis), and afterwards Lepidop- 

 terous (Hydrocampa), but which from examination of De Geer's figures he believed to 

 be Dipterous, and probably the larva of Tipula replicata. It was found in damp moss 

 in Derbyshire, and there was no doubt that the filaments were branchial and con- 

 nected with respiration. 



The President remarked upon the apparent absence or scarcity of tracheae in these 

 branchial apparatus. 



The President exhibited magnified coloured drawings of two larvse, and requested 

 information to what insects they belonged. Except that one was Lepidopterous, and 

 the other probably Coleopterous, no light was thrown upon the subject. 



Mr. W. W. Saunders exhibited a box full of Heliconiae, " all taken together in the 

 same locality" at Cayenne, including forms which have been described under seven 

 or eight specific names; the examination of these specimens had convinced him that 

 all of them were referable to a single species, H. Melpomene, or at most to two 

 species; the structure and general form were constant, whilst the colour varied 

 enormously, so that if his conclusion were correct colour must henceforth be con- 

 sidered as of small specific value amongst butterflies. 



Mr. Bates said that he had found nearly the whole of the same forms on the 

 Amazons, and had come to the conclusion that there were three species, Heliconia 

 Melpomene, H. Thelxiope, and H. Vesla, but that the majority were merely inter- 

 mediate varieties. In their typical slates those three were perfectly distinct, did not 

 interbreed, and no connecting links were found. For a distance of 1800 miles up the 

 Amazons, Heliconias occurred everywhere, but the intermediate varieties were found 

 in only one locality, on the hilly mainland of or adjoining Guyana, at the other 

 extremity of which was Cayenne. The three species occurred in the forests, hut the 

 varieties did not. He had endeavoured to investigate the question whether the species 

 interbred, and whether the varities were the result, and had satisfied himself that the 

 varieties were not hybrids. He thought that the insects were unstable, vacillating 

 species; H. Melpomene, Thelxiope, and Vtsta had become segregated in the alluvial 

 plains, and might now be considered as species, though in his opinion they themselves 

 were the descendants of some one prior unstable form which was their common 



