SOCIETIES. 13^: 



very apparent in the specimen under consideration. , Putting aside the 

 nature of the caudal appendages, the insect was in all particulars an 

 earwig. The present specimen was taken in the Punduloya district 

 of Ceylon, at an elevation of about 4000 feet. Mr. Green said he had 

 more than once seen this insect under loose pieces of bark and in 

 crevices of rocks, and had always been struck by its likeness to an 

 earwig, both in appearance and habits. Mr. McLachlan, Dr. Sharp, 

 Mr. Gahan, Mr. Blandford, and Mr. Hampson made some remarks on 

 the subject. Mr. 0. E. Janson exhibited a Goliath beetle, from the 

 Upper Congo, which he believed to be the male of Goliathus riissus, 

 Kolbe, described from a unique female example in the Berlin Museum. 

 Mr. Blandford called attention to the case of the eye of a boy affected 

 with inflammation caused by the hairs of the larvse of Lasiocampa 

 ruhi ; the attack recurred after an interval of nineteen weeks, and in 

 several continental cases this recurrence of the attack had been found 

 to take place, and in some cases permanent injury to the eye had 

 followed. Mr. Blandford discussed the various kinds of hairs on 

 several caterpillars, certain species having hairs of three kinds, one 

 kind being barbed, and thus having the power to work into the skin. 

 He said that the urticating property of the hairs appeared to be 

 mechanical ; there was no evidence of any poison glands. Mr. Lawford 

 said he had some difficulty in discovering hairs in the lid, and he 

 thought that the symptoms in the case in question were not to 

 be explained by mechanical irritation alone due to the presence 

 of hairs in the tissues. The subject was a new one to him, and 

 he had looked up all the medical literature bearing on it. Lord 

 Walsingham, Mr. Tutt, Prof. Poulton, Canon Fowler, and Mr. Jacoby 

 made some remarks on the subject. Dr. F. A. Dixey read a paper 

 entitled "On the Relation of Mimetic Patterns to the Original Form." 

 The paper was illustrated by coloured diagrams. Prof. Poulton ex- 

 pressed his gratification with the paper, and with the fact that the Hope 

 Collection under his charge had afforded material for the work. He 

 thought the result of the paper was to give support to the theories of 

 Fritz Miiller rather than to those of Bates. Mr. Blandford, Mr. Tutt, 

 and Prof. Meldola continued the discussion. Dr. Sharp contributed a 

 paper entitled " The Ehynchophorous Coleoptera of Japan." Part IV. 

 — H. Goss & W. W. Fowler, Elon. Sees. 



February Idth, 1896.— The President in the chair. Mr. T. Hudson 

 Beare, of Park House, King's Eoad, Eichmond ; Mr. William James 

 Kaye, of Worcester Court, Worcester Park, Surrey ; and Mr. Charles 

 H. Dolby-Tyler, of the British Consulate, Guayaquil, Ecuador, South 

 America, were elected Fellows of the Society. Dr. D. Sharp exhibited 

 preparations of Dytiscus latissiuius and Cyhister roesselii, to show the 

 so-called secondary wing, noticed by Meinert. He stated that this 

 structure is only a part of the elytron, to which it is attached, and 

 that he considered that it corresponded with the angle at the base of 

 the wing seen in so many insects that fold their front wing against the 

 body. He could not consider that this structure afforded any support 

 to the view that the elytra of beetles correspond with the tegulae of 

 Hymenoptera rather than with the front wings. He also exhibited 

 specimens of Neuroptera, and pointed out that this secondary wing 

 agreed in position and structure with a small lobe on the front wing 



