p R o c E E D I isr a s 
OF THE 
DECEMBER, 1866. 
GENERAL MEETING. 
Thursday, December 6th, 1866. — Mr.W. Sanders, F.R.S., F.G.S., 
President, in the Chair. 
The minutes of the previous meeting having been read and confirmed, 
the Hon. Secretary called the attention of the Society to a re-issue by 
the Christian Knowledge Society, of Miss Pratt's work on " Poisonous, 
Noxious, and Suspected Plants," which contained 40 accurate and beauti- 
fully coloured drawings, and was to be obtained at a very small cost. 
Mr. H. K. Jordan, F.G.S., rose to make a few remarks upon the 
exhibition at the previous meeting of a new variety of Helix rufescens, for 
which variety Mr. Rich, who showed the shell, had proposed the name 
" compressa." Mr. Jordan said that he had exhibited a series of the same 
shell, obtained from Paignton, Devon, at the February meeting of the 
Zoological Section {vide Proceedings, page 12), and that the name 
" depressa," which he considered more suitable, had then been adopted ior 
it, in which Miss Jellie had since acquiesced. He therefore thought that 
this variety should be known as HeHx rufescens, var. depressa, in w hich 
opinion the meeting concurred. 
A paper by Mr. C. 0. Groom-Napier, F.G.S., on "The Economic 
Value of British Insects," was then read by the Hon. Secretary, Mr. A. 
Leipner, the author being unavoidably absent in London. 
After alluding to the popular belief that insects were vermin, made to be 
taken and destroyed on every hand, the author spoke of their immense 
number, both as individuals and as species, and said that he should confine 
his remarks to the British members of the class Lepidoptera, butterflies 
and moths. British butterflies numbered about 68 species, of which at 
least 20 were too scarce to be of any economic importance. In nearly all 
cases, however, it was necessary to consider the habits and food of the 
larva rather than of the perfect insect. Some caterpillars fed upon noxious 
