74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1888^ 



and appears very narrow in comparison with the capacity of its tube. 

 The anterior division of tlie body, about an inch long, is flattened, 

 and about half as wide, but narrowing behind, and is composed of 

 eight podal segments provided with dense bunches of lustrous, golden 

 setae. The succeeding segment, long and narrow, is provided with a 

 pair of wing-like appendages an inch long, and each furnished with 

 two bundles of diverging setae. Then follow five long narrow seg- 

 ments with large membranous appendages, without setae. The^ 

 terminal segments, of which 15 remain in the specimen, are furnish- 

 ed with pairs of long pointed appendages with bundles of setae. 



February 21. 

 The President, Dr. Leidy, in the chair. 

 Twenty-one persons present. 

 The following papers were presented for publication : — 



"Researches upon the general physiology of Nerves and Muscles."" 

 By Henry C. Chapman M. D. and A. P. Brubacker M. D. 



"Notes on an aquatic insect larva with jointed dorsal appendages."" 

 By Adele M. Fielde. 



Necessity for Revising the Nomenclature of Avierican Spiders. — Dr., 

 McCoOK remarked that during the summer of 1887, while visiting 

 the Zoological Library of the British Museum of Natural History, 

 he gained information which may revolutionize, or at least compel 

 a radical revision of the nomenclature of American spiders. 



His interest in these animals being known by some of the zoolo- 

 gists in the room, his attention was called to a volume of unpublished 

 figures of American spiders then in the library. These drawings 

 were made by Mr. John Abbot, an Englishman settled in Savannah 

 during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The figures were 

 made as early as 1792. At least they bear that date. Mr. Abbot 

 is well known to entomologists by his work upon lepidoptera, pub- 

 lished in connection with Mr. Smith. ^ This book proved to be the 

 volumes, long supposed to be lost, of original drawings from which 

 Baron Walckenaer described the numerous species from Georgia 

 which are found rn his Natural History of Apterous Insects.^ 



1 "The Natural History of the rarer lepidopterous insects of Georgia. Including 

 their systematic characters, the particulars of their several metamorphoses and the 

 plants on which they feed. Collected from the observations of Mr. John Abbot, 

 many years resident in that country, by James Edward Smith M. D. 2 Vol's, fol. 

 London, 1797." 



2 Histoire Naturclle dcs Insectes. Apl^res. Vols. I. and 11. Suites a Buffon. 

 1837. 



