Entomological Society. 4675 



Prize Essay for 1 855. 



The President announced that the subject proposed for the Prize Essay of the 

 Society this year was the Coccus producing the lac-dye of commerce, towards which, 

 as announced last year, Dr. Royle had promised the assistance of all the information 

 on the subject possessed by the East India Company to any one who would undertake 

 the Essay. 



Proposed Catalogue of British Coleoptera. 



The Secretary stated that a proposition had been made to the Council that the 

 Society should print a concise Catalogue of British Coleoptera, to facilitate the 

 exchange of specimens among collectors, and thus lead to a rectiflcation of the 

 synonymy. The Council, although aware that at present such a list must be imperfect, 

 were disposed to give the proposition a favourable consideration provided they were 

 assured of support, and they invited communications on this point from Coleopterists 

 generally. 



Mr. Westwood thought, that by the united labours of our Members this desirable 

 work might be accomplished. 



Dr. Gray said he had long tried to get a Catalogue of British Coleoptera made, 

 but in vain ; he was still ready to print one, and to pay the author. 



Habits of Eastern Butterflies. 



Mr. Newman called the attention of the Meeting to a paper, by Mr. Wallace, ' On the 

 Butterflies of Sarawak,' which appeared in the March number of ' The Zoologist/ The 

 passages to which he referred were as follows : — " The handsome green and blue 

 spotted butterflies, Papilio Agamemnon, &c, fly with the greatest rapidity of any 

 Papilios: the eye can scarcely follow them ; in fact they much resemble in habit the 

 humming Sphinxes, and hover over flowers, or more frequently over damp places on 

 the ground, with a constant vibration of the wings. * * * Papilio Iswara, and 

 another species allied to P. Helenus, but I think new, have an undulating flight, very 

 like that of the South American Morphos, or even sometimes approaching that of the 

 large Noctuidae, and they rest with the upper wings deflexed over the lower." Mr. 

 Newman thought both these facts, the hovering like Sphinxes, and the resting with 

 deflexed wings, extremely interesting: it would be within the recollection of many en- 

 tomologists that Mr. Swainson and the late Mr. Edward Doubleday had urged the 

 latter character as a reason why Castnia should be united to the Sphingidae : with this 

 new evidence before us, we may perhaps agree to the conclusion of these eminent 

 Lepidopterists, but we must demur to the reasoning, because if Castnia were a Sphinx 

 only on the ground that it possessed the character of resting with deflexed wings, then 

 Iswara were a Sphinx also. On mentioning this subject to Mr. Adam White, the ori- 

 ginal describer of Papilio Iswara, and a gentleman whose entomological knowledge 

 is all but universal, he obligingly showed Mr. Newman specimens of allied Papilios 

 preserved, in the matchless collection of the British Museum, with their wings in the 

 position described by Mr. Wallace. 



South African Honey-bee. 



Under this title Mr. Newman read the following memorandum:--" I believe it is 

 generally supposed that one particular species of bee is entitled to the name of ' honey- 



