PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 
2 MM 
eggs, inside. He had watched this being done by Alaptus fiisculus, and 
had kept these eggs under observation, and at length saw the little 
Alapti emerge, and had identified them with what had been previously 
classed as another species under the name of Alaptus minimus ; and lie 
believed there were many others which had not been so well made out, 
but which might prove to belong to other species. He had, as already 
mentioned, discovered eight new genera, but he could not say how many 
species, as the drawing of such minute objects with anything like accu- 
racy involved a very great strain upon the eyesight. Fortunately, how- 
ever, when properly mounted, these insects all lent themselves admirably 
to photomicrography ; he had already taken some, and had brought these 
to the meeting for inspection ; but he hoped to be able to take a nega- 
tive of every one, and also hoped in time to be able to work out a com- 
plete monograph of the British Mymaridse ; but he felt that very few 
Iversons were interested in this group, and little had been done in this 
direction lately except by Hr. Gooch and himself. Observations as to 
their habits were difficult to carryout; and as for dissections — well, they 
would understand that if the insect was so small, the diameter of the 
ovipositor must be very small indeed ; and when they came to measure 
the internal diameter of the ovipositor, it was found to measure only 
1/4000 in. It was astonishing to note how these minute creatures 
exhibited such an amount of intelligence as he had witnessed. Alaptus 
would, for instance, keep exclusively to one kind of egg, and would 
never lay its own in any others but these. He had tested this by putting 
an Alaptus upon a leaf with a number of different kinds of egg, and had 
invariably found it to disregard all but the one sort ; indeed, he on one occa- 
sion put only one of the right kind amongst a quantity of others, and saw 
the little insect run over all of them, touching each egg with its antennae, 
and rejecting them in turn until it found the one in question, when it 
instantly stopped, bored this egg, and laid one inside it. He had never 
bred but one kind of Alaptus from the same species of egg. He had 
also watched the egg struck, and had then dissected it, and had kept it 
under observation, seeing the germ grow until it became an active 
larva ; and he had seen the various parts develop and fall into position 
until the creature became perfect. The classification of this family was 
very much in confusion, as might be expected from the way some of the 
species had been determined. Sir John Lubbock, in 1862, found am 
aquatic species, to which he gave the name of Polynema natans, and he 
made a drawing of this for reference. A French observer, Ganin, bred 
a number from the eggs of a dragon-fly, and made another drawing. It 
happened that he (Mr. Enock) had seen both these drawings, and had no 
hesitation in saying they were of different genera ; and yet both Sir John 
Lubbock and Ganin had agreed that they represented the same creature, 
which was incredible to him if they had really both compared the draw- 
ings and descriptions. The one found by Ganin was undoubtedly some 
kind of Anagrus which did not really live in the water and use its wings 
for swimming like the one found by Sir John Lubbock. He had bred 
a number from the eggs of a dragon-fly, and these certainly were Anagri. 
They walked about for some time on the bottom of the glass vessel 
but when he removed them with a pipette and placed them in a saucer,, 
the moment they reached the air they flew away to the window. He con- 
cluded, therefore, that they could not fly under water, and he noticed that 
