1992 The Zoologist — January, 1870. 



Mr. Dunuing remarked that only one name, S. balteatus, was common to the lists 

 of Mr. Home and Mr. Verrall, so tbat, if all were correctly named, no less llian ten or 

 twelve species of Syrpliiis occurred in tbe swarm on the S.E. coast on the 24th of 

 August. 



Mr. Verrall added that S. balteatus was rare in swarms; S. decorus he believed to 

 be a discoloured variety of S. auricollis ; S. topiariiis, if British, was extremely rare, and 

 did not occur in the Collections of the British Museum or the Entomological Club ; 

 and if Eristalis teuax occurred in a swarm of SyrphidiE, it could only have got there 

 accidentally, as it might appear anywhere else from its universal distribution. He had 

 once come upon the tail end of a swarm of SyrphidiE, and the stragglers seemed to be 

 nearly all S. auricollis and its var. maculicornis. 



Wiih reference to the swarms of Coccinellae, the President and Mr. M'Lachlan 

 remarked that in this case there was no necessity to have recourse to the hypothesis of 

 immigration, as they had both noticed, previously to the appearance of the beetles, an 

 unusual quantity of the larvse of CoccinelljE in the southern counties of England : the 

 simultaneous hatching of a large number in one locality caused a scarcity of food 

 there, and compelled many of them to move elsewhere; arriving at the sea-coast the 

 majority were stopped, whilst some, attempting to go further, fell into the sea and were 

 washed back with the tide. The littoral phajnomena of the swarms were thus 

 sufficiently accounted for. Mr. M'Lachlan added that the larvce of Coccinella would 

 eat the pupse of their own species (see Ent. Mo. Mag. iii. 97); and Mr. Janson 

 mentioned that, during the present season, he had had an apple-tree completely 

 covered with black Aphides (commonly called American blifjhl), the whole of which 

 were cleared off in three or four days by Coccinella 7-punctata. 



With reference to various letters which ap|)eared during the autumn in the daily 

 papers, Mr. J. Jenner Weir said that the *' fireflies " reported at Caterham were the 

 males of the common glow-worm ; and Mr. F. Smith mentioned that he had a 

 number of so-called "glow-worms'" sent to him from Margate, which proved to be 

 larva; of Telephorus. 



Mr. Pascoe remarked that, though insect-swarms were not common on or very near 

 to the surface of the earth, there must be a great abundance of insect-life in the upper 

 atmosphere; the destruction of insects at a considerable elevation by swifts must of 

 itself be enormous. 



With reference to the height to which insects may attain, Mr. Albert Miiller 

 recalled the fact, recorded by Mr. F. Walker (Entom. Weekly lutell. vii. 7(5), of the 

 discovery of a Chlorops lineata enclosed in a hailstone which fell during a storm on 

 the 18th of July, 1859. 



Papers read. 



The following papers were read : — 



" New Genera and Species of Coleoptera from Chontales, Nicaragua," by ihe 

 President. 



"Descriptions of New Genera and Species of Hispidae ; with Notes on some 

 previously described Species," by Mr. J. S. Baly. 



"A Synopsis of the Genus Clothilda," by Mr. Osbert Salvin.— /. W. D. 



