7906 



En ioinohnjicn I Society. 



Professor Westwood observed that the Australian species of Psychida? had, at the 

 request of W. W. Saunders, Esq., been observed with great care by Mr. Stephenson, 

 and the specimens collected by that gentleman having 1 been placed in his (Professor 

 Westwood's) bauds, he had illustrated them in a memoir published in the ' Pro- 

 ceedings of the Zoological Society :' the largest of these species had been described by 

 Mr. Saunders himself in the ' Transactions of the Entomological Society,' Vol. v. 

 (1847) p. 43, under the name of Oiketicus elongatus, which he (Professor W.) had 

 changed to Oiketicus Saundersii, in order to keep up uniformity in the specific no- 

 menclature of the genus. It forms a tough leathery case, several inches long, to the 

 outside of which long twigs are attached longitudinally. One case, exhibited by Dr. 

 Knaggs, had not been described by Professor Westwood, although known to him, in 

 consequence of the moth not having been reared : the case of this species is a leathery 

 oval one, with sharp longitudinal ribs of the same material, without any extraneous 

 materials fastened on the outside. 



Mr. Dunning exhibited an admirably-executed photograph of a dark variety of 

 Abraxas grossulariata, and read an extract from the ' Proceedings of the Northern 

 Entomological Society' of December last, which referred to the production of it : Mr. 

 Dunning thought that Photography might be found useful in obtaining accurate deli- 

 neations of many entomological objects. 



Professor Westwood observed that a work had been published at Paris, several 

 years since, by the authorities of the Jardiu des Planles, in which Photography had 

 been tried in different branches of Zoology, but the representations of insects had 

 proved failures, owing to the want of accurate definition in the extended limbs, 

 antennae, &c, which seemed to render the act useless to Entomology, except in flat 

 surfaces, such as the wings of Neuroptera, &c, of which the veins were capable of 

 being very clearly represented. 



On the Breeding of Varieties in Lepidoplera. 



Mr. Dunning also read, from the 'Proceedings of the Northern Entomological 

 Society,' a paper by Mr. C. S. Gregson, " On the Breeding of Varieties in Lepi- 

 doplera," in which the author detailed the result of his experiments on various species, 

 with the view of showing that by supplying the larva with a food-plant differing from 

 the known natural food of the species, variation from the usual coloration would be 

 obtained in the imago. 



Dr. Wallace had often noticed that on chalky soils oak-leaves were of a very pale 

 green tint; on limestone soils, as in Wales, foliage generally bad a dark leaden hue. 

 On mosses dark tints were prevalent, as also at Killarney and Rannoch. He attri- 

 buted this to the chemical difference in the soils, aided by solar and atmospheric in- 

 fluence. Brighton insects were notoriously pale, and inclined to fade on the setting- 

 board ; Scottish insects remarkable for their richness of colour ; Welsh insects for 

 their leaden hues. Since the juice of different plants possessed different chemical 

 elements, he attributed to this, as also to the power possessed by the larva of assimi- 

 lating these different elements, much of the variation in depth of colour in the 

 instances cited by Mr. Gregson : he therefore referred the tone of colour in an insect's 

 { wing to the chemical elements assimilated through the medium of the plant from the 

 soil. 



Professor Westwood trusted that, if Mr. Gregson's article should only be privately 



