232 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
EntomobocieaL Society or Lonpon. 
May 1, 1878.—H. W. Bares, Esgq., F.L.S., F.Z.S., President, in the 
chair. 
Mr. Henry John Elwes, F.L.S., F.Z.S., of Preston House, Cirencester, 
was elected an ordinary Member. Mr. Peter Cameron, of 31, Willow Bank 
Crescent, was elected a Subscriber. 
Mr. Dunning drew attention to the fact that the present meeting marked 
the forty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Society. 
Mr. W. L. Distant exhibited a specimen of the Hemipteron Tetroda 
bilineata, Walk., as a remarkable instance of immunity from the effects 
of damp, the same having been kept in a relaxing-pan for more than 
four months. 
Mr. Distant also communicated a paper entitled ‘Notes on some 
Hemiptera-Homoptera, with Descriptions of new Species,” in which he 
drew attention to the uncertainty of generic calculations as to geographical 
distribution; the Homoptera affording a good illustration in the family 
Cercopida, especially the genus Cercopis. 
The President remarked that the old coleopterous genus Buprestis had, 
like Cercopis, at one time almost ceased to exist, through the generic 
subdivision it had undergone. 
Part 1 of the ‘ Transactions’ for 1878 was on the table-—W. L. Disranz, 
Secretary. 
Waitt WHALE aT THE WESTMINSTER AQuaRIuM.—A specimen of the 
White Whale (Beluga), taken on the coast of Labrador, was safely housed 
in the large tank on the 29th May. ‘The consignment originally consisted 
of four, two of which were intended for the Westminster Aquarium, but 
one of these died on the voyage; its death was the result of an accident, 
caused by a heavy roll of the ‘ Circassian,’ in which steamer they were 
conveyed to Liverpool. Unlike the one received at Westminster last year, 
this specimen appears to be in good health and to have suffered little from 
its enforced confinement for five weeks in a large box, packed on a layer of 
sea-weed. In transit they are kept thoroughly moist—an indispensable 
condition of their existence—by the application of water every three or four 
minutes, both day and night. The specimen at the Aquarium is nearly 
full grown; its age is estimated at five years; length over all thirteen 
feet six inches. It has so far recovered from the effects of its long confine- 
ment as to remain some minutes at a time under water and to consume 
between fifteen and twenty pounds of live eels a day. 
