66 PEOCEEDINGS: BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 516th meeting was held November 15, 1913. Vice-President 

 Paul Bartsch in the chair and thirty-five persons present. 



F. V. CoviLLE presented a commmiication on The physiology of the 

 blueberry. His remarks were based on wide experience in green house 

 and outdoor culture of this plant. Three conditions are essential to its 

 successful propagation: (1) an acid soil; (2) the presence of the micor- 

 rhizal fungus to enable the plant to obtain nitrogen; and (3) the stimu- 

 lating effect of cold on the twigs while they are dormant. The last is a 

 condition of vital importance, associated as it is with the transformation 

 of starch into sugar. As a result of this series of experiments, the com- 

 mercial propagation of the blueberry is now possible. Very large berries 

 have been developed, some of them from | inch to | inch in diameter. 

 The various means of cultivation were explained and illustrated by 

 means of numerous lantern slides. 



W. C. Kendall, the second speaker announced on the program, 

 was absent, and the chairman asked Dr. Leon J. Cole of the Uni- 

 versity of Wisconsin to address the Society. He responded by giving 

 an account of his experiments in breeding pigeons for the study of color 

 inheritance. 



Owing to the lateness of the hour, the communication by Barton 

 W. EvERMANN was postpoucd. 



The 517th meeting was held November 29, 1913. President E. W. 

 Nelson in the chair and sixty-three persons present. 



The meeting was devoted to a discussion of Parallel Development. 

 A. D. Hopkins read a paper on Parallelism in mor-phological characters 

 and physiological characteristics in Scolytoid Beetles. He had made a 

 special study of these beetles and his ideas of parallelism in nature were 

 largely founded on evidence they have furnished. He defined the subject 

 as follows : 



"Parallelism in morphological characters and physiological charac- 

 teristics in Scolytoid beetles relates to the occurrence of the same or 

 similar elements of structure or the same kind of activity in two or 

 more species, genera, subfamilies, or families. Parallel species, genera, 

 and larger groups are those in which structure or habit is in many 

 respects alike. Such species or groups may be closely allied or more or 

 less widely separated. Universal parallelism relates to repeated or 

 multiple origin, development, and evolution of the same or similar 

 inorganic or organic forms or activity. 



"This tendency towards parallel development appears to be in ac- 

 cordance with a fundamental principal or law of parallelism in evolution, 

 under which the origin and evolution of the same form or activity, 

 under the same or similar physical influences, has been repeated many 

 times; or, in other words, that under similar environments, needs, and 

 requirements in nature, independent development and evolution from 



