90 



SEPTEMBER 4th, 1909. 



Field Meeting at Westerham, Kent. 



Conductor : Hy. J. Turner, F.E.S. 



The morning threatened rain for the half dozen members 

 who met in the train to form the earl}' contingent of the 

 meeting. On reaching Westerham the uncertainty became 

 a certainty, for rain fell as the party began to get to the 

 higher chalk hills above the village. A very pleasant, and 

 probably a fruitful, collecting ground was reached, but col- 

 lecting was quite out of the question, and after a lengthy wet 

 ramble a return was made to the station to meet the afternoon 

 party. About half a dozen more members came down, and 

 the ramble was continued in another direction to the High 

 Chart. It rained more or less at intervals, and scarcely any 

 imagines were taken. A few larvae were beaten out of the 

 wet branches, and just when leaving the Chart to follow the 

 path down through the park of Colonel Warde, a colony of 

 the larvae of Enpithecia absinthiata was discovered on an 

 abundant growth of ragwort. A very comfortable tea finished 

 a ramble on which the chief thing collected was water. 



SEPTEMBER gfh, 1909. 



Mr. Lucas made a series of exhibits, including the fresh- 

 water sponge {Spongilla fluviatilis) from Oberwater, and Beau- 

 lieu River, in the New Forest. Entomologically it is of 

 interest as being the food of the genus Sisyra (of which there 

 are three British species) of the order Neuroptera, whose 

 larval life-history is so peculiar in some ways. Coloured 

 photographs of the fungi, Polyporus cuticnlaris, on ash, and 

 Polyporus rufescens, on heather, both from the New Forest, 

 August, 1909 ; Cordyceps ophioglossoides, an uncommon fungus, 

 one of the Pyrenornycetes, growing parasitically on the subter- 

 ranean fungus, Elaphomyces grannlatiis, found at Esher, Sep- 

 tember gth, 1909. 



Mr. Main exhibited specimens of living cockroaches, which 

 had just been discovered in the packing of sugar received 

 from Java. The species was subsequently ascertained to be 

 NatiphcFta circuuivagans. 



Mr. Sperring exhibited four specimens of Arctia caia, and 

 contributed the following note : 



