25 
time in Wicken. Dr. Sequeira said he had never seen the imago so 
late as in September. Mr. Bacot was of opinion it had a fixed hyber- 
nating stage, that of pupa. The larva feeds rapidly in sunny weather. 
Although he would have thought the Fens were bleak, yet after visits 
he came to the conclusion that in summer the marshy ground here 
absorbed much warmth, and the reason for P. madman being limited in 
range he attributed to lack of sufficient heat elsewhere. He pointed 
out that the larva was first spiny and then smooth, indicating that it was 
specialised when first hatched, and had probably lost the primitive 
stage. Dr. Chapman had found on the continent that butterflies will 
fly to the top of hills, not because the larvae fed there, but because 
they apparently like to be at the top, and will drive others away. He 
had noticed this habit in Apatura iris, Papilio podalirius and Pyrameis 
atalanta. Mr. W. -T. Kaye had found the larva on wild angelica in 
England, and questioned whether the food-plant on which it occurs in 
the Fens was really ever wild carrot. He believed it to be Peucedanum 
palustrc, a species not unlike the wild carrot (Damns carutd). He 
thought there were three points remarkable about this butterfly: 
(1) Its wide range throughout the world, (2) its narrow range in Eng¬ 
land, (8) the fluctuations in the numbers of its occurrence. The 
scarcity of it in some years he attributed to its being too prolific. If 
it produces a second brood rather late in the season the larv* are not 
able to feed up in time to change to pupa before the winter, and the 
following year’s supply of imagines suffers. He also thought it was 
an insect requiring, besides great warmth in summer, also a sufficient 
amount of cold in winter. Mr. Nicholson spoke of the two colour 
forms of the pupa, and had obtained both in rearing his larvae without 
being able to distinguish the determining cause. The wild pupae were 
generally of the green and yellow form. Mr. Clark mentined they 
pupate on reeds in the Fens, although they feed up on “ wild carrot.” 
Mr. Bacot had found a pupa on dwarf sallow. Dr. Chapman referred 
to Mr. Merrifield’s recent experiments. If the larvas were allowed 
to pupate on black sticks the pup<e were dark and were green if sur¬ 
roundings were made suitable for inducing this. The pupa was always 
one of these two well-marked forms. 
Dec. 5th, 1899 .—Annual meeting.—Election of members.— 
Messrs. V. Eric Shaw, of 8, Moss Hall Grove, North Finchley, and C. 
P. Pickett, of The Ravencrofts, 52, Columbia Road, Hackney Road, 
N.E., were elected members. 
Mud-wasps.— Mr. Bacot exhibited some mud-wasps, believed to be 
lihynchium synayruides, from Florida, and Witwatersand, South Africa, 
with a specimen of their mud-built egg-cells, which had been plastered 
up in the centre of a ball of string left for a time in a room of his 
correspondent. 
Lycaenids from Dover and Folkestone.— Mr. C. P. Pickett, a 
series of pretty forms of Polyommatus corydon, from Dover, and P. 
bellaryus from Folkestone, also three Pyramids atalanta, bred indoors, 
the last emerging December 3rd. 
Australian Psychid.— Mr. H. A. Fuller, specimens of cocoons of 
the “ house-builder ” moth from Australia. These were probably the 
cases of a Psychid moth, referable to the genus L'lania. 
Agrotis saucia ab. nigricosta.— Mr. Prout, a long series of 
Ayrotis saucia, from Sandown, with ab. nigricosta. 
