[page] lxxxii [title]

[page] lxxxiii

 

April 1, 1867.

Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., President, in the chair.

Exhibitions, &c.

Mr. S. Stevens, on behalf of Mr. Higgins, exhibited six specimens of Damaster blaptoides from Japan: the species appeared to be very local, and to be found only near Nagasaki, whilst its smaller congener D. Fortunei was found in the North of Japan.

Mr. Pascoe exhibited, and read the following description of, a new species of Toxotus from Greece:—

TOXOTUS LACORDAIRII.

—T. (♂) fuligineus, pube griseo-argentea tectus; segmentis duoous ultimis abdominis, femoribusque apicibus exceptis luteis; tibiis anticis et intermediis dimidio basali lutescentibus; antennis basi luteis, articulo tertio quinto longiore.

(♀) mare vix robustior; in toto nigrescens, sparse argenteo-pubescens; tibiis intermediis et posticis articulis basalibus dilatatis; antennarum articulo quinto tertio duplo longiore.

Long. 8 lin.

"The male somewhat resembles T. quercus, but in the comparative length of the joints of the antennæ it is more like T. meridianus. The female is scarcely stouter than the male, and differs from it, as well as from all other European species of the genus, in having the third and fourth joints of the antennæ equal, and the two together not longer than the fifth; as well as in having the basal joints of the four posterior tarsi as broad as the succeeding joints: the same is also the case with the anterior tarsi, but the character occurs in other species. IN both sexes the two tubercles on the prothorax are strongly marked and have a slightly linear form.

"I have not dwelt on colour, as that will probably be found to vary. The pair from which the above descriptions were made have been for some years in my cabinet, and were originally obtained at Mr. Stevens's, from a collection made in Greece."

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Mr. Edward Sheppard read the following extract from the 'Daily News' of the 29 of March, 1867:—

"According to the Melbourne papers just received, enormous swarms of beetles have been noticed lately in Victoria, Australia. In the early part of January a swarm was noticed near Ararat, in Victoria, flying in a column about twenty yards broad, and keeping in compact order. They cast a dark shadow on the ground, and they were an hour in passing the spot from which they were seen. At a certain point they turned off at right angles. The Eucalypti in the neighbourhood of these insects have been stripped of every particle of foliage. Great numbers of the beetles fall to the ground during the flight The noise they make while flying is like that of a hurricane playing in the rigging of a ship. The colour of these beetles is a dark bronze."

Mr. Bates said that Anoplognathus was found amongst Eucalypti, but he thought the insect referred to was more probably a grasshopper than a beetle; it was not probable that Coleoptera would thus migrate in swarms.

Mr. Weir and Mr. Wallace referred to the clouds of Coccinellæ which were commonly observed in the hop-growing districts of Kent.

Mr. M'Lachlan mentioned that Dr. Brauer bad recently described, under the name of Pharyngobolus Africanus, the earlier stages of a species of Œstridæ, the larva of which bad been detected in the throat of the African elephant.

Mr. F. Smith exhibited an ichueumon, Rhyssa persuasoria, placed in his hands by Mr. Bond, which appeared to have worked its long ovipositor, bradawl-fashion, through a piece of tir-wood, in quest of the larva of Sirex juvencus, on which it is parasitic; purl of the ovipositor had been left in the wood. Mr. Bond had some years ago found at Bournemouth two ichneumons with their ovipositors so firmly fixed into wood that he was unable to remove them. Mr. Smith had always hitherto supposed that the Rhyssa inserted its ovipositor into the holes made by the Sirex, instead of making a hole for itself in the tree: if the latter were the rule, how did the ichneumon detect the presence of the larva within the wood, and know where to insert its ovipositor? Mr. Edward Doubleday, however, had told him that he had Seen twenty or thirty specimens of the female of a Pelecinus which had perished with their elongated abdomens inserted into the stem of a tree, whence they had been powerless to extract them; the male bad a clavate abdomen, but that sex had never been met with by Mr. Doubleday.

Mr. Bates inquired whether an ovipositor was not, homologically, a modification of one of the abdominal segments.

Mr. Smith thought it was rather a modification of the aculeus.

Mr. Wallace suggested the converse, namely, that the sting was a modified ovipositor, and that its use as a weapon of defence was a secondary and acquired use.