174 



Society." This was carried by acclamation, and Mr. Bates was thereupon admitted 

 as a Member, and signed the Obligation Book. 



Alteration of Bye-Laws ; Notice of Special Meeting. 

 Notice was given that, in consequence of a requisition presented to the President 

 and Council, signed by six Members, a Special General Meeting wonld be held on 

 Monday, the 25th January, 1864 (the next Anniversary), at 7 p.m., for the considera- 

 tion of certain alterations in the Bye-Laws specified in the requisition, and the object 

 of which was, to abolish the Library and Cabinets Committee and the Publication 

 Committee, and to vest iheir powers and duties in the Council, to change the title of 

 Curator to that of Librarian, and to repeal the clause by which it is enacted that no 

 resident in Great Britain shall be an Honorary Member of the Society. 



Exhibitions, ^c. 



The President exhibited the nest of Trigona carbonaria referred to in the ' Pro- 

 ceedings ' of the last Meeting; it had been recently received from Queensland, and 

 was constructed in an artificial situation, in the interior of a box, by reason of which 

 ils appearance was probably different from the normal form of the nest ; on the upper 

 (or free) side was a quantity of matter, of a coralline structure, which was apparently 

 made for the purpose of carrying the nest up to the top of the box, and thereby of 

 attaining additional support. Externally the nest seemed to consist simply of rude 

 spherical honey-pots in contact with one another, or connected by means of the coral- 

 like work before alluded to, but the President thought it probable that there was 

 comb, more or less irregular, in the interior. It was remarkable that not a single 

 female of any of the numerous species of Trigona was known. 



Prof. Westwood remarked u^on the extraordinary difference of habit between the 

 Brazilian and Australian Trigonae; the Brazilian species made hexagonal cells in 

 single layers, and the difference was as remarkable as if a species of Apis in England 

 were found to make honey-pots like a Bombus instead of the ordinary nest of a true 

 Apis. This structural modification was so great as to suggest a doubt whether Trigona 

 carbonaria had been rightly placed in the genus Trigona. 



The President also exhibited nests of Deilocerus EUisii, Curtis, one of the social 

 Tenthredinidae: the nests had formerly been exhibited by Curtis at the Linnean 

 Society, and were figured in vol. xix. of the Linnean ' Transactions.' 



A lively conversation subsequently took place, on the origin or causes affecting 

 the hexagonal form of the cells of bees, in which the principal participants were the 

 President, Mr. Waterhouse, Mr. Bates and Prof. Westwood. 



The President exhibited specimens of Hyponomeuta padella, which had been 

 given to him by one of the assistants in the British Museum, and which were said to 

 have been bred from larvae feeding on unripe grains of corn. The gentleman in ques- 

 tion (to whose general accuracy of observation the President bore testimony) had been 

 walking through a corn-field in Suffolk, plucking some of the ears and eating the 

 grain, when he noticed an unpleasant taste, and on examination found numerous 

 larvae feeding on the grain ; he had put some into a box, and from them had emerged 

 the exhibited specimens of H. padella. It was, however, thought probable by the 

 Lepidopterists present that some mistake must have been made as to the identity of 

 the larvffi from which the moths had been raised. 



Mr. Bond exhibited a coloured drawing of the larva of Sphinx Convolvuli, of which 



