SOCIETIES. 369 



Park, Sittingbourne, Kent, on May 30th last. Mr. W. B. Spence sent 

 from Florence, for exhibition, some specimens of a cricket, Gryllus 

 campestris, in small wire cages, which he stated were, in accordance 

 with an ancient custom, sold by the Italians on Ascension Day. Mr. 

 F. Enock exhibited a specimen of the curious aquatic Hymenopteron 

 Prestwichia aquatica, female, which Sir John Lubbock first captured in 

 1862, but which had not been recorded since that date until its redis- 

 covery in May, 1896. Mr. Enock said that the male had remained 

 unknown until June last, when he captured several swimming about 

 in a pond at Epping. The male was micropterous, and, like the 

 female, used its legs for propelling itself through the water. Mr. Tutt 

 exhibited a beautiful aberration of Tephrosia bistortata (crepuscularia)^ 

 in which the ochreous ground colour was much intensified, and the 

 transverse shade between the median and subterminal line was deve- 

 loped into a brown band ; the transverse basal, median, and subter- 

 minal lines on the fore wings, and the median and subterminal lines 

 on the hind wings, being strongly marked in dark brown. It was taken 

 by Mr. J. Mason at Clevedon in March, 1893. Mr. Tutt also exhibited 

 the cocoons, pupal-skin, and aberrations of the imago of ZijgcBna 

 exulans. The cocoons were spun upon one another, five in a cluster, 

 and Mr. Tutt stated that the species was exceedingly abundant in the 

 pupal and imaginal stages during the first week of August on the 

 mountain slopes above Le Lautaret, in the Dauphine Alps, at from 

 7000 to 9000 feet elevation. The pupa-skin was very similar to those 

 of other Zyggenids. The imagines exhibited were all aberrations, 

 and consisted of females of the ab. flavilinea, with bright yellow 

 nervures ; a large male and several females of the ab. striata, with the 

 red spots more or less confluent and developed into streaks ; also, a 

 unique female aberration, in which the wing from the base to far 

 beyond the centre was entirely crimson. Dr. Sharp exhibited a 

 specimen of a lepidopterous insect that had been alluded to in the 

 * Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' Sept. 1896, p. 201. It was a 

 caterpillar which had received the eggs of a parasite on the anterior 

 part of the body ; the abdomen, nevertheless, went on to the pupal 

 metamorphosis, while the head and thorax remained attached to it in 

 the caterpillar stage. He also called attention to some peculiarities in 

 the pupa of Plusia moneta, pointed out to him by Mr. Fleet ; in this 

 species the pigmentation varies greatly in extent, and is sometimes 

 entirely absent. Mr. Blandford called attention to the recent dis- 

 coveries relating to the Tsetse fly, made by Surgeon -Major Bruce 

 in Zululand, which proved that this insect affected animals by 

 infecting them with a parasitic Protozoon. The parasite was 

 communicated from wild animals to domestic animals, and was 

 probably more widely distributed than was generally believed, it 

 or a closely allied form having been found in India and England 

 in sewer rats. He said that Surgeon-Major Bruce had proved that 

 the Tsetse fly was pupiparous, which was of importance as affect- 

 ing the classification of the Diptera. Dr. Sharp said that in his opinion 

 the Tsetse fly would cease to be troublesome with the advance of 

 civilization. Mr. C. G. Barrett exhibited the pupa-skin, cocoon, and 

 eggs of Hesperia comma, L., found on chalk-hills near Beading by Mr. 

 A. H. Hamm. He also exhibited and remarked on a series of both 



