﻿1869.] 69 



Mr. Smith exhibited a coloured drawing of the luminous larva shown by him at 

 the last meeting, which Dr. Candeze and Professor Schiodte (present as visitor) 

 believed to belong to the Elateridm. He also exhibited a living field-cricket, found 

 near Farnham ; and a series of Pissodes notatus from Bournemouth. 



The Hon. T. De Grey exhibited three examples of Cosmopteryx orichalcea from 

 Wicken Fen ; and a series of a Tortrix which Professor Zeller held to be a dark form of 

 Carpocapsa Juliana ; it had been bred in April, from pupae in moss on beech-trunks, 

 and Mr. De Grey expressed himself rather uncertain as it to its identity with Juliana. 



The Secretary read a long and interesting letter from Mr. C. A. Wilson, of 

 Adelaide, with notices of various South Australian insects. 



Mr. C. M. Wakefield (present as a visitor) gave some account of the insect- 

 fauna of New Zealand, and remarked that its prevailing feature was the paucity 

 of species, as in Mammals and Birds. Mr. Fereday had only obtained about 14 or 

 15 species of Diurnal Lepidoptera and 250 of moths. He himself had only noticed 

 about 120 species of Coleoptera. Trochilium tipuliforme had been introduced into 

 New Zealand with its food-plant. Mr. Wakefield had lost all his collections of New 

 Zealand insects through the burning of the ship " Blue Jacket." 



Mr. A. E. Wallace read a Continuation of his " Notes on Eastern Butterflies." 

 Mr. Edwin Brown communicated a paper " On the Australian species of 

 Tetraclia." 



This was the last meeting before the autumn recess. 



ON C0PT0BEBA AND THE ALLIED GENEEA. 

 BI H. W. BATES, F.Z.S. 



In examining the species of Coptodera in my collection, I have 

 found some features in their structure which seem to have escaped the 

 attention of all authors who have written upon that genus. These I 

 now propose to make known, together with the descriptions of many 

 new species. 



The genus belongs to the Truncatipennes division of the Oeodepliaqa 

 and group Pericalince, distinguished from the Lebiancs by the length of 

 the labrum, which covers in great part the mandibles, and is often 

 longer than broad, and by the simple penultimate joint of the tarsi. 

 The species of Coptodera all live on and under the rotten bark of trees, 

 running with great rapidity ; their surface is free from pubescence and 

 is generally metallic in colours, and ornamented with flexuous bands of 

 a pallid hue. Their habit of searching for prey under close-fitting bark 

 is associated with a flattened form of body and especially flattened and 

 lengthened mouth ; the mandibles being long, depressed, very acute 

 and scarcely curving towards the apex, and the ligula and paraglossa?, 

 together with the labrum, lengthened and flattened in the same propor- 

 tion. The two terminal joints of the maxillary palpi form together an 



