SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIFs. 119 
February 4, 1885.—R. M‘Lacuran, Esq., F.R.S., &c., President, in 
the chair. 
Mr. M‘Lachlan returned thanks to the members for his election to the 
office of President, and nominated Messrs. Dunning, Stevens and Weir as 
Vice-Presidents for the ensuing year. 
H. B. James, Esq. (Valparaiso) and Thomas Collett Sandars, Esq 
(46, Cleveland Square, Hyde Park, W.), were balloted for and elected 
Members of the Society. 
Mr. J. W. Slater exhibited a specimen of Polyommatus chryseis, Hiib., 
captured on Cultor Moor, Aberdeenshire, in July, 1878, by Mr. James 
Mutch. The occurrence had not been previously recorded, as the captor 
was not aware of the rarity of the species; two other specimens were seen 
in the same locality, 
Capt. H. J. Elwes said the specimen greatly resembled the boreal form 
P. Stieberi, Gerh., which is uncommon in Lapland, and this fact tended to 
confirm the genuineness of the capture. Messrs. Stainton and Weir also 
made some remarks on the exhibit. 
Rev. A. Fuller exhibited a collection of insects, particularly rich in 
Lepidoptera, captured along the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway during 
his visit to the Rocky Mountains after last year’s meeting of the British 
Association at Montreal. 
Mr. W. Cole exhibited a wasp’s nest from Woodford Bridge, Essex, 
from which he had extracted Specimens of Vespa norvegica, Fabr., and 
stated that Master Chapman, the finder of the nest, had captured specimens 
of Vespa sylvestris, Scop., issuing from the nest. 
Mr. E. Saunders stated that he had examined the specimens, and the 
circumstance of the two species occurring in one nest was very curious ; 
they both belonged to the same section, and were not structurally distinct, 
except in the genitalia of the males; still the species differed much in size, 
colour, and pubescence. 
Mr. W. L. Distant exhibited, on behalf of Mr. L. de Nicéville, of 
Calcutta, a series of wings of butterflies, illustrative of seasonal variation in 
Indian Rhopalocera collected in Calcutta, The point to be discovered is, 
as M. de Nicéville wrote to him, why “the ocellated forms should occur in 
the rains and the non-ocellated ones in the dry weather? ” 
Capt. Elwes made some extended remarks upon the subject of seasonal 
dimorphism and geographical forms, saying that Mr. Fuller’s exhibits 
reminded him of one of the most interesting facts connected with geo- 
graphical distribution, as many of the varieties in his collection made on 
the line of the Canadian Pacific occurred again over 500 miles south in 
the mountains of Colorado, and at no intermediate stations. 
The President also remarked on the importance of M. de Nicéville’s 
exhibition and discoveries of the temperature forms of various Satyride, 
