4038 Insects. 



and tegumentary, equally as in the glandular and muscular. These facts, the author 

 observes, may perhaps assist us to understand the nature of the injection of the trachea? 

 by M. Blanchard, and also the mode of nutrition in insects ; the ultimate branches of 

 tracheae in the tissues of the alimentary canal operating, possibly, as absorbent struc- 

 tures, and inducing the chylific fluid elaborated around them to flow, in its transit 

 outwards, along the channels formed by their loose peritoneal covering into the regu- 

 lar circulatory currents. Further, they may assist to explain the mode of coloration 

 of the tracheae in the experiments of MM. Alessandrini and Bassi, and of M. Blan- 

 chard, and also in others, yet unpublished, made by himself on the larvae of Clisso- 

 campa Neustria, in July, 1837." — From the '■Proceedings of the Linnean Society,'' 213. 



Note on the Ocelli in the Genus Anthophorabia, Newp. — At a meeting of the Lin- 

 nean Society on the 19th of April, 1853, Mr. Newport " remarked that since the pub- 

 lication of his observations on these insects in the ' Transactions ' of the Society, his 

 attention had again been directed to the peculiarities of the organs of vision in the 

 male sex. He had already shown that these individuals possess only ocelli at the sides 

 of the head as well as on the vertex, but that these structures exist at precisely the 

 same parts of the head as the ocelli and the compound eyes in the female, and conse- 

 quently that there can be no doubt of their homology. These appearances, however, 

 having led some to question the correctness of this, it became necessary, in order to 

 judge aright of their nature, to consider what are the essential conditions of a struc- 

 ture which is specially destined for the appreciation of light. This consists, as already 

 pointed out in fishes, of a follicle or pit in the tegument of the head, coated with dark 

 pigment, and receiving the distal termination of a particular cerebral nerve, conditions 

 which are precisely those of the ocelli, both of the sides of the head and of the vertex, 

 in Anthophorabia. The various modifications of the eye in insects, with regard to the 

 form of the cornea, the depth of the chamber, and the presence of the choroid, and of 

 the lens, with reference to the extent of field, and the focal distance, of vision, were 

 pointed out, and the degree in which they exist in Anthophorabia mentioned, as coin- 

 ciding with the peculiar habits of the insect. The structures in the male were thus 

 shown, by the presence of cornea, chamber, choroid, and nerve, to be most indisputa- 

 bly organs of sight. The author referred also to the binary origin of the nerve of the 

 middle ocellus of the vertex, as formerly pointed out by him in his paper on Pteronar- 

 cys ; to the origin of ocelli in the same way as other dermal tubercles ; and to the 

 imperfect eye-spots in the Scorpionida? being supplied with nervous filaments from the 

 same optic nerve which supplies the recognized organs of vision in those animals.'' — 

 From the ' Proceedings of the Linnean Society,' p. 219. 



Capture in the North of England of six Species of Coleoptera new to the British 

 Fauna. — Having some few Coleoptera, principally small species, which I was unable 

 satisfactorily to name, I availed myself of M. Javet's kindness, and sent them to Paris 

 for examination. By his and Dr. Aube's courtesy, T am enabled to record the following, 

 which have not, in so far as I am aware, hitherto been taken in Great Britain : — 



Oxypoda maura, Erichs. A pair taken on the herbage of a pond at Gosforth, May. 



Ephistemus globosus, Waltl., Erichs. One on a hot-bed at Long Benton, June. 



Cryptophagus badius, Sturm. Newcastle. 



„ acutangulus, Gyll. Newcastle. 



„ dentatus, Herbst. By sweeping herbage, Gosforth, June. 



„ subdcpressum, Gyll. Newcastle. 



— Thos. John Bold ; Angas' Court, Bigg Market, Ncwcastle-on-Tyne, August 19, 1853. 



