80 



except the males, which could readily be obtained by 

 assembling. The larvae took three years to feed up. 

 During the first year they fed in the bark, and it was an 

 easy matter to tell this stage by the character of the frass. 

 In the second and third years, however, the frass was 

 indistinguishable. It was found upon splitting the affected 

 stems, that during the second year the larvae burrowed 

 without approaching the sides. In the third year their 

 burrows always tended to go towards the side. Mr. Tutt 

 suggested that in this species it was probable that the ova 

 were laid exteriorly on the stems. 



Mr. Tutt was inclined to think that the first meal of the 

 larvse of several of the Sesias was on the leaf. He was also 

 in want of some definite information as to where the eggs of 

 Cossus ligniperda were deposited. 



Mr. Adkin said that he had found ova of C. ligniperda on 

 the bark of a poplar tree ; they were deposited in patches of 

 various sizes, from perhaps three quarters of an inch in 

 diameter down to clusters of not more than half a dozen 

 eggs together ; they were fully exposed to view, no attempt 

 being made to conceal them. Zenzcra pyrina, which was 

 also a wood feeder, he believed from observations that he 

 had made, deposited its ova very carefully under the bark 

 and so out of sight. 



Mr. Tutt said that these two species were associated 

 together by most systematists with very little reason, as 

 they were in no way related. The ova even were remarkably 

 distinct. The latter species had small, weak, flesh-coloured 

 ova suitable for placing in cracks in the bark ; while the 

 former species had large, strongly-ribbed ova comparable to 

 those of noctuas and butterflies, yet they were deposited on 

 their sides and retained their oval shape. He strongly 

 urged the great importance of eg^ characters in classifi- 

 cation. 



Mr. West exhibited the Hemipteron, Graphocr(srns ventralis, 

 obtained by sweeping at Lee. It was a somewhat uncommon 

 species. 



Mr. F. M. B. Carr exhibited and presented to the Society's 

 collection an undetermined specimen of a Hymenopteron 

 taken in the flower of a yellow azalea at Rhinefield, New 

 Forest, June ist, 1900. 



He also exhibited : (i) A typical female of Pyrrhosoma 

 nymphnla and two female specimens of a variety in which 

 the red colour of the abdomen was replaced by bronze- 

 black, the segmental divisions being yellow ; all three taken 



