110 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF 



together with the mutilated remains of the preceding premolar. The teeth 

 are too much worn to enable me to determine the original anatomical charac- 

 ters, but nevertheless are sufficiently perfect to indicate an animal probably 

 allied to the suilline family. The specimen belongs to a genus and species 

 distinct from any heretofore met with by me from the North American geolo- 

 gical formations, and, so far as I can make the comparison, appears different 

 from any obtained elsewhere. I propose at present to refer it to a species with 

 the name of Hyopsodus paulus, and in future will give a more detailed de- 

 scription of it accompanied with a drawing. 



The length of the true molar series in the specimen is half an inch. The 

 last molar is a little over two lines in its fore and aft diameter. The depth of 

 the jaw below the second true molar is three and a half lines. 



u 



Oct. llth. 

 The President, Dr. Ruschenberger, in the Chair. 



Twenty-six members present. 



The following papers were presented for publication : 

 " Observations on some fishes new to the American Fauna, found 

 at Newport, R. I., by Samuel Powell." By Edward D. Cope. 

 " Note on Silphium laciniatum." By Thos. Meehan. 



Mr. Thomas Meehan said he had noticed a singular habit in the common 

 Stink bug" of gardens, Reduvius novenarhts, Say, which might lead to some 

 important physiological discoveries by those more closely devoted to entomo- 

 logical studies. Wondering what made some abrasion on the bark of a Pinus 

 cembra on his grounds, he was attracted by a female insect of this species 

 near it ; and noticed that on the thigh of the middle leg the usual gray color 

 was of a polished black. Supposing that possibly the insect may have had 

 something to do with the injury to the bark, through which the turpentine 

 was oozing, he waited a few minutes to re-assure the insect usually timid 

 under observation that there was no danger. It then went to work to take 

 the turpentine with the heel of the tarsus of the fore leg, aud place it on the 

 thigh of the second leg. It took several dozen " heelsful," winding it round 

 the gathering ball on the leg, as one would wind a ball of string. After it had 

 collected together a ball of turpentine about the size of a pin's head, it gently 

 wiped it off with the femora of the hind leg, and applied it to the anus, where 

 it was very rapidly absorbed. It then walked very leisurely to the top of the 

 nearest branch, when it flew away. This was in the end of September. He 

 saw no more of these insects till a week afterwards, when he cut off a small 

 branch on which was another female, and carried it to the pine tree, applying 

 the branch to the stem so that the insect could walk on to it, without much 

 suspicion of human agency in the matter. As soon as it got to the turpentine, 

 it went througk the same operation as the other one, taking two doses of it 

 before it walked away ; which it did leisurely, and with much apparent satis- 

 faction. 



Up to this time he had not been able to find a male, so as to ascertain if it 

 also had any similar use for turpentine. 



Thaddeus Norris, after making some observations on a project now on foot 

 for stocking the Delaware river with the black bass of the Potomac {Grystes 

 salmoides), brought originally from the Ohio, mentioned in the same connec- 

 nection an experiment about to be tried of introducing Salmon by artificial 

 culture. He thought that the Delaware had many characteristics of rivers 

 producing large salmon in Canada, while its summer temperature was scarcely 

 higher; that it was unobstructed by impassable dams on some of its fine trib- 



[Oct. 



