The Zoologist— Fkbruaky, 1870. 2029 



afiei ilic manner of Odynerus spinipes, but il was the first time be bad beard of any 

 species of bee forming; such a conslructioi). 



Tlie President said that some species of Melipona, which form their nests in the 

 hollows of trees, construct a trumpet-shaped enliance of waxy material, or of some 

 substance held together by a waxy cement. 



Mr. F. Smith exhibited a larva-c»se, which he supposed to belong to a species of 

 (Eceticus, found by Mr. J. K. Lord in the plains near Mount Sinai : numbers of the 

 larvjE weie seen crawling on the sand, no tree or bush being near, and the only 

 jdant growing in the neighbourhood being a species of wild sage. The larva-case 

 appeared to be formed principally of pieces of grass, arranged longitudinally. 



^Jr. J. Jenner Weir exhibited two specimens of Heliothis armiger, bred from 

 larvae which fed in tomatoes. An importation of tomatoes from Spain or Portugal 

 had been greatly damaged by a number of green larvte, with black lines and spots, 

 which fed in the fruit, where there was apparently juice enough to drown them, and 

 which ultimately produced the moths exhibited. 



Prof. Wesiwood exhibited drawings and dissections of several remarkable new 

 forms of PselaphidEB. 



Mr. Albert Miiller exhibited a photograph of a Coleopterous monstrosity, a speci- 

 men of Plerosiichus Prevostii with eight legs: on either side of the left hind leg 

 (i.e. before and behind the normal hind leg) was a supernumerary limb of somewhat 

 stunted growth, but structurally perfect: there were apparently three distinct coxae 

 fitting into three separate sockets iu a single expanded trochanter. The beetle was 

 found iu Switzerland, and Mr. Miiller had seen it alive: the extra legs were simply 

 carried, and not used to assist in locomotion. 



With reference to the locust exhibited at the previous j\Ieeliiig (S. S. 1990), the 

 President had received the following from Mr. Edwin Brown: — 



" I am informed that when my specimen of a new locust was exhibited at the last 

 Meeting of the Society, it was suggested that the occurrence might have been 

 brought about by the introduction of the insect into the brewery in an empty returned 

 cask. I think such a suggestion is untenable, inasmuch as two specimens of the same 

 species were captured in different parts of the town of Burton-on-Trent, and one 

 caught in Birmingham certainly belongs to the same species. There were several 

 other instances recorded in the papers about the same time of locusts having been 

 captured in Worcestershire, in Nottinghamshire, and at Waterford. It has not yet 

 been proved that these examples were all of the new species, l)ul it is highly probable 

 that this was so, as the peculiar positions in which the locusts have been captured this 

 year all indicate, if I may so terra it, an unsophisticated disposition of the animal, 

 widely different from that of Lncusta migratoria, which has nearly always been found 

 in fields or gardens, whilst the species of this year has been captured in two brewery 

 yards, iu the roou) of a house, upon a man's coat, and (it is said) upon a lady's bonnet, 

 but looking at the difficulty an animal so large would find in getting standing room 

 upon a modern bonnet, there may possibly be some mistake as to the last-mentioned 

 locality. Mr. F. Walker has identified the species as Acridium peregiinum of 

 Olivier, which is dispersed over a large part of Asia and Northern Africa, but has not 

 hitherto been found in Europe." 



(See also, on the recent occurrence of locusts in this country, Newman's Entom. 

 iv. 367.) 



