Abstract
LONDON
Entomological Society, Jan. 6.—Prof. Westwood, president, in the chair.—Mr. McLachlan exhibited a collection of coloured figures of the transformations of twenty-one species of Japanese Sphingidæ, beautifully executed by a native artist employed hy Mr. George Lewis, long resident in Japan. Prof. Westwood exhibited the net-work cocoon of a small moth from New Granada, attached to a leaf on which was also placed the body of a butterfly (one of the Hesperidæ), strongly affected by fungoid growths. Mr. E. Saunders exhibited two species of Buprestidæ from the Pelew and Caroline Islands respectively, apparently belonging to a, new genus, yet resembling, in external characters, two species of Chryovdema from the E. India Islands.—Mr. Champion exhibited two species of Coleoptera new to Britain.—Mr. Miller called attention to a recently printed Government report respecting the ravages of the vine-scourge (Phylloxera uastatrix}. An interesting discussion took place, in the course of which Prof. Westwood stated that, to the best of his belief, the first notice of its occurrence in Europe was made by himself in a paper read before the Ashmolean Society of Oxford regarding its ravages in this country.—Dr. Sharp communicated a paper on the water-beetles of Japan, in which he mentioned that, although there were many European species occurring in the Japanese Islands, yet there was also a cons derable admixture of Asiatic forms. — Mr. Wollaston followed by a paper on the Cossonidæ of the same islands. He stated that the ordinary European types of that family do not prevail in Japan, but are replaced by kindred or representative forms. Mr. Pascoe thought that the fauna of Japan, like that of Madagascar or New Zealand, might be termed a satellite fauna, which, while having many endemic forms, had yet a great deal in common with the neighbouring continent. Mr. Bates asked that judgment upon the question be suspended; although many Western European species were also found in Japan, the collective faunas of the two regions were totally different, and if they found only one fauna in common, the majority of the genera ought to be the same, which was apparently not the case.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 7, 195–196 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007195a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007195a0