Entomological Society. 5087 



shut up in a dark closet, whence they spread through three rooms, and were seen in 

 thousands in crevices of wood, on chairs, tables, books, paintings and cabinets of 

 shells, so that they became a complete nuisance. Cold had no effect on them ; and 

 tobacco, turpentine, colocynth and Sir W. Burnett's disinfecting fluid had been tried 

 as remedies, with but little effect. Sulphur and nitre had been more efficacious; but 

 in consequence of their use the polish of the furniture and shells had been destroyed, 

 and the colours of the paintings had been damaged. 



Mr. Westwood thought the palm-leaves had probably been affected by Ptini or 

 Anobia, whose excrement and the debris made by them had afforded a nidus for the 

 Acari, in which they were for some time unmolested. He suggested as a cure the 

 employment of corrosive sublimate in solution ; but several members said that, how- 

 ever fatal this preparation of mercury was to insect life, it was also destructive to any 

 metals with which it came in contact, as proved by the rotten state of the pins in 

 insects and the wires in bird-skins which had been dressed with it, and a white film 

 was deposited on the surface of anything to which it was applied. 



The President said a case had come under his notice in which cockroaches had 

 been destroyed in a drawing-room, under the floor of which they had taken up their 

 quarters, by the use of chloride of lime ; and he thought it possible this preparation 

 might be of service in the case now under consideration. 



Read the following note by Mr. Newman : — 



On the Genus Synemon. 



" There is scarcely a genus of Lepidoptera more interesting than the Australian 

 Synemon. With the general habit and abruptly clavate antennae of a butterfly, it 

 has other very important characters of a moth ; and it will be fresh in the recollection 

 of our Lepidopterists that our never-to-be-forgotten and most talented Secretary, 

 Edward Doubleday,* wrote quite an Essay to show that it was a moth and not a but- 

 terfly. Well ! I have gleaned a few more grains of information about Synemon from 

 Mr. Oxley, who constantly saw it and often took it at the diggings. It is strictly di- 

 urnal, flitting about in the hot sunshine, among the tufts of grass and low scrub, with 

 all the restless activity of a skipper: when it settles it rests for a minute with deflexed 

 wings, but with the fore wings spread out nearly at right angles with the body, so as 

 to display the more gaily-coloured hind wings. At night and in cloudy weather it 

 rests on blades of grass, with the wings erect, meeting vertically over the back. Thus, 

 in the combination of characters, these antipodeans unconsciously annihilate the dis- 

 tinction between butterflies and moths, between Rhopalocera and Heterocera : the 

 gradations from Hesperia to Synemon, from Synemon to Castnia, from Castnia to 

 Sphinx, and so on to the normal Heterocera, are easy and natural, and seem to bridge 

 over the gulf which formerly existed in our minds between butterflies and moths." 



Specimens of two species were exhibited in illustration. 



New Genera of Coleoptera. 



Mr. Westwood read descriptions of two beetles especially remarkable for the lateral 

 dilation of the head, a character of great rarity in insects. They would constitute 



* See Appendix, by Edward Doubleday, to Lort's Discov. Austral i. 516. 



