7862 



Entomological Society. 



tions otherwise proportionate, &c, &c. The following synonymy of the two species will 

 probably prove correct: — 



" 1. Haploglossa pulla, Gyll. 



Aleochara pulla, Gyll. Ins. Suec. iv. 495,56—57 (1827). Fairtn. ei Laboulb. 1 } 

 Faune Ent. Frang. Coleopt. i. 451, 27 (1856) — but not of Kraatz or 

 Waterhouse. 

 "2. Haploglossa nidicola, Fairmaire. 



Aleochara nidicola, Fairm. el Luboulb. Faune Ent. Frang. Coleopt. i. 451, 28 

 (1856). 



Haploglossa rufipennis, Janson, Proc. Ent. Soc, Feb. 6, 1860, Zool. 6J57 



(I860)— wee Kraatz. 

 Haploglossa pulla, Kraatz, Naturgesch. d. Ins. Deutscld. ii. 80, 2 (1856). 

 Waterhouse, Cat. Brit. Col. — but not of Gyllenhal. 



" The first is said by Gyllenhal to inhabit Fungi : the only indigenous specimen 

 which I have seen, the one now exhibited, was given me by Mr. H. S. Gorham, who 

 captured it in the Isle of Wight, he thinks, in an ant's nesi beneath a stone, and who, 

 I believe, has other examples. 



"The second, M. Fairmaire informs us (/. c), he found abundantly in the nests 

 of the sand martin at St. Valery-s.-Somme, and I have myself met with it crawling 

 upon and at the base of sand banks inhabited by these birds, and have watched the 

 beetles ascend the almost perpendicular walls of sand and enter the burrows in which 

 Dests were situate. Mr. May found it copiously in flowers, and I have several times 

 taken it in those of the ragwort (Senecio Jacobcea)." 



Mr. Tegetmeier called the attention of the meeting to a theory propounded by 

 Principal Leitch to account for the development of a fertile queen-bee from an egg 

 which would, under ordinary circumstances, have produced a steriie worker. 



It is well known that bees deprived of their queen select several workers' eggs or 

 very young larva; for the purpose of rearing queens. The cells in which these eggs 

 are situated are lengthened out and the end turned downwards. The larva undergoes 

 its development in this perpendicular ceil, which is capable of being entirely sur- 

 rounded by the worker bees. It was found by experiment that the position of the 

 cell was not of importance, as a fertile queen was developed with equal certainty when 

 the cell was placed horizontally or even inverted, as when it remained in the natural 

 pendent position. It was suggested that the more perfect development of the fertile 

 larva was due to increased temperature, and that the object of the isolation of the cell 

 was to allow its being entirely surrounded by a cluster of bees, whose rapid and 

 increased respiration was productive of the warmth necessary to accomplish the growth 

 of a queen. 



In remarking on this theory, Mr. Tegetmeier stated that the idea of the develop- 

 ment of a queen being dependent on the use of a food known as "royal jelly" 

 appeared destitute of any foundation in fact, and that the theory which attributed 

 the change to increased temperature produced by the clustering bees appeared sup- 

 ported by the fact that in rearing queens artificially several queen cells were usually 

 situated closely together, and also that the production of fertile workers, which 

 occasionally took place under these circumstances, might be regarded as dependent on 

 the adjacent cells being subjected to a somewhat increased temperature by the 

 clustering of the bees around the royal cells. He further stated that it had been 

 ascertained by the use of delicate thermometers that a higher temperature existed in 



