CURRENT NOTES. 355 
Another meeting of the members of the Entomological Club and 
their friends was held at 4, Lingard’s Road, Lewisham, S.E. on 
November 27th, Mr. R. Adkin being the host. The gentlemen present 
included Messrs. Verrall, Smith, McLachlan, C.G. Barrett, H. Rowland- 
Brown, S. Edwards, A. H. Jones, J. Jager, W. J. Lucas, H. J. Turner 
and J. W. Tutt. Tea was provided at 6.30 p.m. by Mrs. and Miss Adkin, 
after which a most enjoyable evening was spent, supper being served 
at 8 o'clock. 
At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London, held on 
November 7th, Mr. George S. Saunders exhibited specimens, from 
Devonshire, of Pieris rapae and Plusia yamma caught by the proboscis 
in flowers of Arauwjia albens, Don., a climbing plant of the natural 
erder Asclepiadaceae ; and explained the nature of the mechanism by 
means of which the insects were entrapped by the flowers. Mr. 
Gahan remarked in reference to the capture of insects by Araujia 
albens, that the statement met with in some books to the effect that 
insects were only captured by it in countries where the plant was 
introduced and not in its native country, was wrong. The specimens 
exhibited by Mr, Janson at a meeting of the Society last year, came 
from Buenos Ayres, one of its native places. The subject had recently 
been discussed in France by MM. Marchand and Bonjour, whose 
account appeared in the ‘“ Bulletin de la Soc. des Sciences Nat. de 
l'Ouest de la France,” for 1899. These authors concluded that insects 
were captured only by immature flowers, the anther-wings, in the 
cleft between which the proboscis of the insect is caught, being at that 
time stiff and resistant; but when the flowers are ripe the anther- 
wings become less rigid and do not offer sufficient resistance to the 
withdrawal of the proboscis, which carries with it the pollinia ready 
to be transferred to the stigma of the next flower which the insect 
visits. 
At the same meeting the Rey. F. D. Morice mentioned as a fact of 
some interest, that in a nest of Formica sanguinea at Weybridge, in 
which he found males and workers of that species, he found also males 
and females as well as workers of the slave-ant, Formica fusca, an 
experience somewhat different from that of Huber and Darwin, who 
stated that workers only, and never males nor fertile females of the 
slave species, were found in the nests of F’. sanguinea. 
The President of the Entomological Society of London at the 
meeting on November 21st suggested from the chair that Fellows 
living in or out of London, should, by letter, communicate to the 
Secretaries the names of any Fellows that they considered should have 
a seat on the Council. He further stated that he would like to see the 
election of Council and Officers arranged so that the whole body of 
Fellows should take a more direct part in the election. The President 
further hinted that representative members residing out-of-town would 
be especially welcomed. ‘To do this the number of Fellows serving on 
the Council should clearly be increased. There are at present only 15— 
of whom 5 are really fixtures, and 5 of the others have to retire each year. 
The specialisation of work makes it very necessary that the Council 
should be as representative as possible, but, at the same time, as the 
work of the lepidopterists is, at present, much more specialised than that 
of the students of any other order, and the Fellows who are lepidopterists 
outnumber the Fellows studying all other orders by about 5:1, some 
