Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/526

500 case or sac, from the imperfectly closed aboral or free end of which the caterpillar had suddenly withdrawn itself (the case-bearers, as well known, readily being able to turn in their cases) on immersion in alcohol, and on which its anal pair of prolegs had closed in their death-grasp. The end of the cord fastened firmly to the back of the Homopteron being the oral or attached end of that case; i.e., the end by which the case-bearers fasten themselves when at rest to the twigs and branches of the plants on which they live, the attachment being quite as firm, or even firmer, than that of the present specimens. Mr. Wood-Mason's view of the nature of the relation of the caterpillar to the Homopteron in all these cases had always been that the former is the messmate of the latter rather than its parasite, merely making use of it as a vehicle whereon to reach its vegetable food, just as in the curious case recently brought to notice by Fritz Müller ('Nature,' vol. xv., p. 264), and employing,—as Colonel Godwin-Austen's valuable note on the specimen found by him on Aphæna, sp., and his own examination of that specimen in its cocoon seemed conclusively to prove—some of its messmate's wax to cover its body (and in some instances for the construction of a case), in order probably to render itself less conspicuous to its enemies (Ichneumonidæ, Tachinidæ, &c.) than it would be as a naked, fleshy, yellowish grub upon the white wax-covered surface of its messmate's body. He had opened the flattened squarish cocoon constructed by Col. Austen's specimen, and found the body of the enclosed caterpillar still clothed thickly on its upper surface with the satiny asbestos-like waxy substance secreted by its messmate. This specimen was probably identical with Professor Westwood's Epipyrops, while the one from Bangalore represented a different but closelyallied form, distinguished in the larval condition by the presence of a well developed case, which may or may not have been rendered less conspicuous by a covering of wax borrowed from its homopterous "chum."

With reference to the firmness of the attachment of the cord to the back of the Homopteron, Mr. Jenner Weir reminded the Society that the larvæ of Psyche were always most firmly fixed, and Mr. M'Lachlan stated that the larvæ of Phryganea glued down their cases with great firmness under water.

Mr. W.L. Distant raised the question as to whether the Homopteron frequented the plants on which the caterpillar fed or whether the latter was omnivorous.

Prof. Westwood also mentioned a small dingy moth from Brazil, of which numbers had been found upon the Three-fingered Sloth, Bradypus tridactylus.

Mr. Meldola exhibited a collection of Lepidoptera, from Ceylon and the Nicobar Islands, formed by him in 1875. Among them were a few species new to science. The collection had recently been worked out by Mr. F. Moore.