169 



seemed to occur in almost all the cornuted beetles, and also in those with long 

 anlennee. Mr. Pascoe said that his notion had been that the second form was pro- 

 bably the produce of a second brood, bom or reared under different circumstances 

 from the original brood. Mr. Bates replied that, in the Copridse, the two forms cer- 

 tainly occurred in the same brood ; he had once thought that the variation of the 

 mandibles and antennae was owing to the absence of any precise function which those 

 organs had to fulfil, by reason of which absence there was nothing to limit or give the 

 character of fixedness to the amount of variation. Mr. Janson thought it was settled 

 that the function of the mandibles of the Lucanidee was to break or bruise the bark of 

 trees, with a view to the sustenance of the insect. Mr. Jekel replied that the females, 

 without the development of mandibles, had to do that as much as the males with the 

 large development. The President referred to the case of certain bees which were un- 

 mistakeably males, and possessed appendages in the form of horns, as e.g. the male of 

 Osiuia cornuta. Mr. Bates inquired whether the males of the Lucani (L. Cervus, for 

 instance) fought with one another, and used their mandibles as weapons of offence, 

 like deer, which amongst the Mammalia might be considered to correspond with the 

 horned beetles amongst insects. Prof. Weslwood said that males of Trichiosoma 

 had been found fighting together, with their mandibles locked. Mr. Bates con- 

 cluded that, fundamentally, horns were excrescences of the male organization, and 

 that it was an afterthought of Nature to make them subserve any particular 

 function. 



October 5, 1863. 

 F. P. Pascoe, Esq., V.P., in the chair. 



Donations to the Library. 



The following donations were announced, and thanks returned to the respective 

 donors :— ' The Journal of the Eoyal Agricultural Society of England,' Vol. xxiv. 

 Part 2 ; presented by the Society. ' Sitzungsberichte der Konigl. bayer. Akademie der 

 Wissenschaften zu Miinchen,' 1863, I. Heft. 3 ; by the Academy. ' The Intellectual 

 Observer,' No. 21 ; by the Publishers, ' On the Development of Chloeon (Ephemera) 

 dimidiatum,' Part 1 ; ' On the Development of Lonchoptera,' by John Lubbock, Esq., 

 F.E.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S.; by the Author. 'Exotic Butterflies,' No. 48; by W. W. 

 Saunders, Esq. 'The Zoologist' for October; by the Editor. 'The Journal of the 

 Society of Arts' for September; by the Society. ' The Farm and Garden,' Vol. ii. 

 No. 22; Vol. iii. Nos. 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29; by C. A. Wilson, Esq., Corr. Memb. 

 Ent. Soc. 'The AthenEeum' for September; by the Editor. 'The Reader' for 

 September; by the Editor. 



Exhibitions, SfC. 



Prof. V7estwood supplemented the account he had given at the last Meeting of the 

 method pursued at Dresden in the preservation of larva;, by stating that the larva-skin 

 was not first blown out and afterwards placed in a glass vase over a lamp, but the skin 

 was first placed within the vase and blown whilst actually suspended over the lamp, by 

 which means the rapidity of the skin's drying was much increased ; it was done with a 

 small tube or blow-pipe fixed at the end of a bladder, which was held under the arm 

 or between the knees, so as to leave the hands at liberty ; and the straw which was 



