IIG 



on one side and but tliree on the other: the white spot in my drawing is a little too 

 large, and the tail of the other caterpillar was longer.' They were in the possession of a 

 schoolfellow, Howard Sims, and changed to chrysalides amongst some leaves, from 

 which the molhs never emerged, owing to the frequent disturbance of them. 



" 3rd. A drawing of Hygrotus bisulcatus, which I described in the ' Annals of 

 Natural History,' and which is quite distinct from any of the European species that 

 have fallen nnder my notice. 



"4lh. A drawing of the Apion named after me, in 1817, by the Rev. W. Kirby. 

 I am very desirous of laying this slietch before the Society, in order to correct a mis- 

 statement which I should be sorry to see repeated. Being at that time on a visit at 

 Barham, I took a single specimen of an Apion, which Mr. Kirby decided to be un- 

 known to him, and of which he made a detailed Latin description for publication, and 

 I made the drawing : being in my youth at the time, Mr. Kirby paid me the compli- 

 ment to name an Apion after me; I could not but feel gratified, and although I 

 believe Mr. Kirby's description was never printed, Mr. Janson is quite mistaken in 

 supposing that I had named the Apion after myself, or that it was a discovery since 

 1839, as assumed in the 'Entomologist's Annual:' the latter misstatement is cor- 

 rected by the above date, and I should be sorry to be considered capable of such a 

 contemptible act of egotism as to name an insect after myself. The truth is, that 

 Mr. Stephens having with queries described a mere variety of a common and very 

 distinct species as the Apion Curtisii, it became necessary to identify the type, which 

 I did by describing it in the 'Annals of Natural History' as the Apion Curtisii of 

 Kirby's MSS. Whether Mr. Kirby's description, with many others of which I have 

 copies, were handed over to Mr. Stephens with the MSS. of the Staphylinidae, is 

 unknown to me.'' 



Mr. Stevens remarked that this Apion remained unique until he had the good 

 fortune to take the species at Little Hampton and near Arundel. 



The President also communicated the following note: — 



On the Genus Conops. 



" Little is known of the economy of this beautiful genus of flies, except that 

 C. flavipes has been bred from the body of an Osmia, which had nidified in bramble- 

 stems. Other species have also been stated to be parasitic on the Bonibii, and Conops 

 auripes is supposed to lay its eggs on the body or between the abdominal segments of 

 Bombus hortensis. As there are eight or nine British species of Conops, some of 

 which are occasionally tolerably plentiful, it would be very desirable that Mr. Walcott, 

 Mr. Smith and other entomomologists who pay so much attention to bees, should bear 

 this subject in mind. 



" INIy principal object, hovvever, is to make known the localities of two rare species 

 of Conops which are merely recorded in Mr, Walker's first volume of the Diptera in 

 the ' Insecta Britannica' as ' Rare' and ' Very rare' : — 



"1. C. macrocephala, Linn., described and figured in the ' British Entomology' in 

 1831, was first captured in England by Mr. Dale, who took a single specimen on the 

 18th of August, 1824, on the flowers of Scabiosa succisa in a meadow at West Hurn, 

 Hants, and he has taken a second specimen, on the 23rd of June, 184(3, on a path in 



