70 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 

 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OE LONDON. 



March 2, 1887.— Dr. D. Sharp, President, in the chair. 



The Rev. T. W. Daltry, M.A., F.L.S., of Madeley Yicarage, Staffordshire; 

 Dr. Neville Manders, L.R.C.P., of the Army Medical Staff, Mooltan, India ; 

 Mr. Alfred Sich, of Chiswick ; and Mr. J. T. M'Dougall, of Blackheath, were 

 elected Fellows. 



Mr. Slater exhibited, on behalf of Mr. Mutch, two specimens of Arctia caja, 

 one of which was bred from a larva fed on lime-leaves, and the other from a 

 larva fed on low plants, the ordinary pabulum of the species. The object of 

 the exhibition was to show the effect of food in causing variation in Lepidop- 

 tera. 



Capt. H. J. Elwes exhibited a large number of Lepidoptera-Heterocera 

 caught by him in the verandah of the Club at Darjeeliug, in Sikkim, at an 

 elevation of 7000 feet, on the night of the 4th of August, 1886, between 

 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. The specimens exhibited represented upwards of 120 

 species, — which was believed to be a larger number than had ever before been 

 caught in one night, — including Bombyces of the genera Zeuzera, Stauropus, 

 JDasychira, Lophopteryx, &c. ; Noctuse of the genera Diphthera, Graphiphora, 

 Gonitis, Plusia, &c. ; and Geometrae of the genera Boarmia, Odontoptera, 

 Urapteryx, Cidaria, Acidalia, Pseudocoremia, and Eupithcecia. Capt. Elwes 

 stated that Mr. A. R. Wallace's observations on the conditions most favour- 

 able for collecting moths in the tropics were fully confimed by his own 

 experience during four months' collecting in Sikkim amd the Khasias. The 

 conditions referred to by Mr. Wallace were a dark wet night in the rainy 

 season ; a situation commanding a large extent of virgin forest and unculti- 

 vated ground ; and a whitewashed verandah, not too high, with powerful 

 lamps in it. He said that on many nights during June and July he had 

 taken from sixty to eighty species, and during his stay he had collected 

 between 600 and 700 species. 



Capt. Elwes also made some remarks on the Khasia Hills, the southern 

 slopes of which he believed to be the true habitat of the greater part of those 

 insects described many years ago by Prof. Westwood and others as coming 

 from Sylhet, which was situated in a flat cultivated plain, under water during 

 the rainy season, not many miles distant from these hills. In consequence 

 of the unhealthy and extremely hot and wet climate of these hills no Euro- 

 peans had done much collecting there, but the specimens were chiefly caught 

 by the natives and brought into the town of Sylhet for sale. 



