ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC, 
403 
Fossil Butterflies.* — Mr. S. H. Scudder states that fossil butterflies 
are the greatest of rarities. They only occur in Tertiary deposits, and 
out of the myriads of objects that have been exhumed from these beds in 
Europe and America, less than twenty specimens have been found. From 
one small lake 50,000 insects were collected, but of these eight alone were 
butterflies. When they are preserved they are generally in such fair 
condition that the course of the nervures, and the colour patterns of the 
wings, can be determined, and in one case even the scales may be 
studied. 
Origin of European Butterflies-t — Mr. W. H. Bath calls attention 
to the assertion of E. Hoffmann that of the 290 species of Rhopalocera 
inhabiting Europe at the present time, no less than 173 were originally 
derived from Siberia. If this be so, the majority of them probably 
immigrated westward. The glacial species of butterflies, that is the 
most ancient forms, are in many cases distinguished by their tendency to 
form black varieties. 
Colour Variation of a Beetle.^ — Mr. W. Bateson gives an account 
of his statistical examination of the colour variations of the beetle 
Gonioctena variabilis , which appears to be abundant in hilly places in 
the South of Spain. He finds that we have here to do with a species 
whose members exhibit variation in several different respects, and that 
the variations occur in such a way that the individuals must be conceived 
as grouped round several special typical forms. There is thus not one 
normal for the species but several, though all live in the same localities 
under the same conditions, and though they breed freely all together 
these various forms are commoner than the intermediates between them. 
Some time since, when calling attention to the excessive variability of 
the colour of Coccinella decemjpundata and the no less striking constancy 
of C. sejptempunctata which lives with it, Mr. Bateson remarked that to 
ask us to believe that the colour of the one is constant, because it matters 
to the animal, and that the other is variable because it does not matter, 
is to ask us to abrogate reason. Mr. Wallace, it seems, is of this very 
opinion, but he does not explain how it is that the colour of one is so 
important, and the colour of the other unimportant to the beetle. 
Male Genital Apparatus of Hymenoptera.§ — M. L. Bordas describes 
in considerable detail the male genital 'apparatus of the various families 
of the Hymenoptera ; although in appearance complicated, these parts 
can be referred to a general scheme, the parts of which only differ in 
form or size. Moreover, there are not those numerous accessory glands 
of remarkable form which are found in other orders of Insects. Theoreti- 
cally, the male genital apparatus of Hymenoptera consists of six parts 
— the testicles, efferent canals, the seminal vesicles, accessory glands, 
ejaculatory canals, and the copulatory armature. The testicles are 
always paired, or united into a single mass, the double nature of which 
is always indicated by a more or less distinct longitudinal groove ; each 
gonad, enveloped in a double membrane, is made up, either of a large 
number (250 to 300) of seminiferous canaliculi, or of a very small 
* Amer, Natural., xxx. (1896) p. 154. f Tom. cit., pp. 154 and 5. 
% Proc. Zool. Soc., 1895, pp, 850-60 (1 pi.). 
