6078 



Northern Entomological Society. 



A Member observed, he had seen some foreign Stegoptera, which few men couhl 

 separate from Lepidoptera, and which he should have pronounced 'scale wings' if 

 they had been set. 



Mr. Greening also exhibited a fine Cicada haBmatodes, taken in the New Forest 

 by Mr. Bond, and specimens of Trogosita mauritanica, taken at Warrington. 



Mr. Kendrick exhibited a box of Coleoptera and Ichneumonidcis, captured around 

 Warrington, containing some rare species, and all particularly interesting as illus- 

 trative of the Fauna of the district. 



A discussion ensued on the advisability of Members exhibiting local captures 

 irrespective of rarity, and it was generally admitted that though very rare species 

 might interest naturalists at the top of the tree more than the ordinary run of captures, 

 yet, as a rule, more information was disseminated by one good box of local captures, 

 however common some of them might be, than by a single species, however rare. 



A Member observed that this seemed to him the great oversight at all the Natural- 

 History Society Meetings which he had attended, — the object of the exhibitors seemed 

 to be to bring something the President and Vice-President alone could appreciate, 

 forgetting that there were always young naturalists and members from a distance 

 present to whom their common local species would prove a feast for the eyesight. 



The President exhibited specimens of Acheta sylvestris, captured in the New 

 Forest: also specimens of GJtenophora bimaciilata, Sarcophaga lineata, &c., bred this 

 spring. 



The Rev. H. H. Higgins exhibited a large box of local Diptera, captured within 

 twelve miles of Liverpool Exchange: this interesting exhibition admirably illus- 

 trated the remarks which had been made by other Members upon this subject. 



Mr. Higgins then called attention to some dead hive bees, which had been sent to 

 him to ascertain the cause of death : he had found the spores of Fungi within them, 

 but it was observed that the Fungi formed after death, and little doubt was expressed 

 that the loss of the hives arose not so much from Fungi as from placing the hives in 

 a bad winter situation, either where the hives had the sun upon them at some part of 

 the day, or where the air was damp and ventilation bad. 



A Member, once an unfortunate bee-keeper and afterwards a successful one, ob- 

 served that he used to lose many light hives, which, as in this case, might be attributed 

 to Fungi: hives of from 37 to 40 tbs. could only just support themselves through the 

 winter, if left in the summer quarters ; whereas, he found, if placed behind a wall with a 

 northern aspect, where the wind was free to blow upon them, and where the sun never 

 could shine upon them for a moment. Fungi never appeared even in the few bees 

 which inevitably die during winter, and the hives lost a very small per centage of 

 weight, and came out strong in bees as in honey when placed in summer quarters 

 again : this fact was now generally known to apiarians, but unfortunately farmers were 

 slow to believe it. 



The Secretary, on behalf of Mr. Parfitt, of Exeter, exhibited Latridius filiformis 

 (n. s.), Anommatus duodecemstriatus and Leptogramma Parisiana (bred) ; also a box 

 of Coleoptera, from the Rev. A. Matthews, containing Trichopteryx sericans, Hee)\ 

 T. pygniea, Erich., and T. curta, Gi/IL, Ptilium angustatum, JErich , P. Kunzei, Heer, 

 and P. excavatum, Ptinidium apicale, Erich. y and P. pusillum, and read a letter from 

 Mr. Matthews, informing the Meeting that he had recently found two genera new to 

 the British list, and which he had described in the April number of the ' Zoologist' 

 (Zool. 6032). 



