668 EEPORT— 1881. r 



itself, which forms the principal article of their food ; and their hody and legs 

 heing not nearly so densely clothed with hairs, their share in the carriage of pollen 

 must he much smaller. The Lepidoptera appear to ravy greatly in their hahits. 

 As far as can he gathered from the few ohservations made, the ' painted lady ' 

 (^Cynthia ca7-dui) and the small tortoise-shell {Vanessa urticce) are verj' constant ; 

 while the whites, the hlues, and the hrowns are far more catholic or less discrimi- 

 native in their tastes. It is open to question, however, whether more than a very 

 few flowers are dependent on butterflies for their fertilisation. At all events, their 

 visits to flowers are often only interludes in then* settlement on grass, lea^"es, the 

 stems of trees, or the hare ground. 



6. On the Mode in which the Seed of Stipa huries itself in the {/round. 

 By Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., F.E.8. 



The author commenced hy pointing out how the structure of seeds served for 

 purposes of dispersion, accounting thus for the winged seeds of many trees, the 

 fleshy pulp of fruits, the hooks on many seeds, the sticky surfaces of some, and 

 the delicate feathery parachutes of others ; and then, after referring in a few words 

 to the cases in which plants throw their own seeds — as for instance, the Violet, 

 Oxalis, Geranium, Broom, and others — sometimes as far as twenty feet, he passed 

 on to the eases in which seeds sow themselves in the gi'ound. 



After mentioning the subterranean clover, the ground-nut, cranesbill, &c., he 

 exhibited the very curious seed of Stijm pennata, a kind of grass, which was' also 

 illustrated by a diagram. The whole seed is more than a foot long, and consists of 

 four parts — firstly, the actual seed, which is about half an inch in length, narrow, 

 pointed, and provided with short, stifl', reciu'ved hairs. Tlie upper end is prolonged 

 into a stiff", twisted, corkscrew-like rod, about two inches in length ; then, at an 

 angle, is a straight piece about |-inch long ; and then a beautiful tapering feathered 

 awn, nearly an inch in lengtli. Mr. Francis Darwin had suggested that this beau- 

 tiful seed buries itself by hygroscopic action, as Eoux has shown to be the case 

 with the cranesbills, the ' corkscrew ' Iwisting and untwisting under the influence 

 of different degrees of moisture. The author, however, gave reasons lor thinking 

 that the true, or at any rate, more usual moti-\e power, was the wind, which acting 

 on the feathery awn, twists the corkscrew round and round, and drives it into the 

 ground. At any rate, in some cases this is the mode of action, and by means of a 

 small bottle filled with moss, and a fan, he exhibited the movement to the Section 

 experimentally. 



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1, On the Insect Honse in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of Ijondon. 

 By P. L. SCLATER, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Zoological 

 Society of London. 



The author called the attention of the meeting to the important addition that 

 had been made during the present year to the Collection of li-\-ing animals in the 

 Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, in the shape of an Insectarium or 

 house for the exhibition of living insects in all stages of their development. 



He stated that, although of late years many entomologists had been in the 

 habit of rearing insects in captivity for the purpose of watching their transforma- 

 tions and obtaining good specimens in each stage of' existence, nothing like a 

 systematic attempt, so far as he knew, had been made to form a general collection 

 of living insects for exhibition. As in former days, as regards reptiles and the 



