Linnean Society. 5021 



genus Pelopaeus was called the " mason-bee ; " the female was described as the male ; 

 and a small green parasitic Chrysis was described as the female. He thought it 

 necessary for the credit of the Society that these mistakes should be pointed out by 

 one of its own Fellows. 



Diptera of the Malay Peninsula. 



Mr. Saunders read some remarks prefatory to a * Descriptive Catalogue of the 

 Dipterous Insects, collected by Mr. Wallace in the Malay Peninsula, by Mr. Walker;' 

 the MS. of which was laid on the table. 



Election of Fellows. 



Nathaniel H. Mason, Esq., J. R. Mummery, Esq. and R. J. Shuttleworth, Esq. 

 were elected Fellows. 



February 5, 1856. — Thomas Bell, Esq., President, in the chair. 



Mr. Newman read the following 



Note on Atypus Sulzeri of Latreille. 



" I beg to exhibit a specimen of the Atypus Sulzeri of Latreille, a spider not 

 uncommon in some parts of France, and which is recorded by Dr. Leach, in the 

 'Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica' (4th Edition ; Art. Annulosa), to have 

 occurred in the neighbourhood of Exeter and London. Dr. Leach's statement ap- 

 pears to have been received with some distrust, owing to a supposed carelessness in his 

 records of habitats, and, although many years have intervened, has never been con- 

 firmed. It is, therefore, with peculiar pleasure that I am able to establish, beyond a 

 doubt, the claim of the species to be regarded as British, and to make some additions 

 to our knowledge of its most interesting economy. In the first place, however, 

 it is necessary to state that for my knowledge of the name and published history 

 of this spider, I am indebted entirely to Mr. Meade, of Bradford, whose courtesy 

 in rendering assistance to any student of his favorite science of Arachnology is 

 familiar to all who have applied to him ; and for the detail of its habits, as observed 

 in the South of England during last summer, I have to thank Mr. Brown, of Ciren- 

 cester, one of the most acute and skilful observers it has ever been my good fortune 

 to meet with. Walckenaer, in his ' Histoire Naturelle des Insectes Apteres,' describes 

 this spider under the name of Oletera Atypa, and thus records its economy: — 'The 

 female constructs, in rather moist places, a subterranean gallery, extending first in 

 a horizontal direction, and then turning downwards; she spins in the interior of 

 this gallery a very close white silken tube, which she strengthens with bits of grass 

 and moss ; and at the bottom of this, she deposits her eggs in an oval-shaped mass, 

 enveloped in a web of white silk and fixed by threads at each end. She leaves part of 

 the tube hanging out of the hole to protect the entrance : this external part is two or 

 three inches long, and half an inch in diameter. The tissue of the tube is very close, 

 fine and white, and resembles the cocoons in which some Lepidopterous pupae are 

 enclosed. It is of uniform diameter, and terminates below in a slightly pointed 



