Scyllarus arctus off Penzance.—Scyllarus arctus has again been taken in this bay by a trawler, and brought to me alive. There can be no doubt that this very rare British crustacean is fairly common in our western seas. I now have received some dozen or more specimens,—some alive, some dead, and one in berry; and several have been taken off Plymouth. This particular specimen fell to my lot through the kindness of Miss Tyacke, our well-known conchologist.—T. Cornish (Penzance).
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.
Linnean Society of London.
February 21, 1878.—W. Carruthers, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-President, in the chair.
The following gentlemen were ballotted for and duly elected Fellows of the Society:—Dr. Hance, of China; Mr. Edward Milner, 32, New Cavendish Street, W.; Dr. George Shearer, 57, Upper Parliament Street, Liverpool; and the Rev. Robert Boog Watson, B.A., 3, Bruntsfield Place Edinburgh.
Among exhibitions of specimens and remarks thereon were—examples of Spongilla Carteri, by Mr. E. Lockwood; a remarkable oak gall of Aphilothrix Sieboldii (Hart.), obtained at Willesboro' Leas, Ashford, by Mr. E.M. Holmes, of the Pharmaceutical Society; and several other botanical rarities.
The only zoological paper read was "On the Butterflies in the Collection of the British Museum hitherto referred to the Genus Euplœa of Fabricius," by Mr. A.G. Butler. The author states that in his monograph in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' (I860), he himself hail split up the genus in question somewhat arbitrarily, overlooking the fact that several natural genera existed. He now further criticises Mr. Scudder's paper "On the Generic Names proposed for Butterflies." He observes that Mr. Scudder in his revision frequently supersedes a name long in use by the resuscitation of a partial synonym. For example, Euplœa is discarded in favour of a name applied to two only of its species. This Mr. Butler deprecates, on the ground that it is not a help, but a hindrance, to the advancement of Science; as also the fact that Mr. Scudder ignores the rule of the British Association respecting the uses of the terminations idæ and inæ for families and subfamilies. Mr. Butler, in emendation of his own former work, proposes, to adopt the genus Salpina and Trepsichoris of Hübner, to fix the limits of his genus Calliplœa, and to add a genus for the
