584 The Zoologist— February, 1867. 



larvae were turned out on the dwarf sallows growing among the gravel-pits in the 

 Forest. A few larvae were seen the following year, but not afterwards. It is very 

 strange that a moth which frequents towns and suburban gardens ou the Continent 

 should be found in such a very different locality here. In France the larvae appeared 

 to feed principally on the elm.'' 



Prof. Westwood repeated that Mr. Briggs' specimens (S. S. 578) were the 

 descendants, only three or four generations removed, of ancestors which were captured 

 in a stale of freedom. 



Captain T. Hutton, of Mussooree, communicated a " Note on the Japan Silkworm,'' 

 in which he expressed his opinion that Bombyx Yamamai is nothing more than a 

 hybrid between a sickly and degenerate race of B. Mori and the little monthly-worm, 

 B. Sinensis, and repeated his conviction that, for the purpose of renewing the Euro- 

 pean stock, experienced eutomologists should be deputed to visit different parts of 

 China, with a view to the re-discovery of the silkworm in its natural stale of freedom. 



Papers read. 



The following papers were read: " Choreutidae and Crambina collected in Egypt 

 in 1864, and Crambina, Pierophoiina, and Alucilina collected in Palestine in 1865, 

 by the Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge ; determined and the new species described, by 

 Professor Zeller; the German descriptions translated into English by H.T. Staiuton ;'' 

 and " A Monograph of the genus Hestia, and descriptions of forms not hitherto 

 noticed ; with a tabular view of the Danaidae and remarks on their natural affinities. 

 By A. G. Butler, F.Z.S., Assistant in the Zoological Department of the British 

 Museum.'' 



New Part of Transactions' 



Part 4 of Vol. v. of the "Transactions" (third series), published in December, 

 1866, and being the fifth Part issued during that year, was on the table. — /. W, D. 



A Review of Systems. By James Edmund Harting, Esq., F.Z.S. 



Setting out with the conviction that all systems must be artificial, 

 and that there is no " natural system," properly so called, we 

 experience some difficulty in making choice of one upon which to 

 classify our British birds. In a former communication I alluded to 

 having studied eighteen "systems" with a view to select the most 

 simple and natural. The notes which I made at the time, now several 

 years ago, have lately turned up with some other memoranda, and 

 thinking that they may perhaps be of service or interest to others who 

 may be in search of a system, I send them to you. As you will observe 

 they are arranged chronologically, commencing with the system of 

 Willughby, he being the first naturalist who treated the study of 

 birds as a science, and the first who made anything like a rational 

 classification. 



