186 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Mr. Schwarz remarked that the bumble-bees found thus 

 early in the season are necessarily all hibernated females, and 

 it would not seem to be impossible that among them there are 

 specimens that had not been impregnated in the fall. Such 

 specimens cannot possibly found a new colony in the spring, 

 and would naturally act differently from the impregnated 

 females. 



Mr. Schwarz exhibited and briefly remarked upon the fol 

 lowing Coleoptera : Charistena lecontei, found at Fortress 

 Monroe, Va. ; Bagous sellatus, found at the same place ; 

 Spharius politus, found in Michigan and Alabama, and Lu- 

 trochus luteus from Michigan. 



Dr. Marx presented the following paper : 



A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF THE SPIDER FAUNA 

 OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



BY GEO. MARX. 



The demands of some groups of Arachnida upon nature for 

 their existence appear to be very simple, and seem to have no 

 regard to climatic, geologic or other physical influences, but to 

 depend solely on one condition, namely, the presence of 

 suitable food, for amongst the Arthropod fauna in the arctic 

 region, where ten months of the year is winter with a tempera 

 ture often falling to 100 degrees below freezing point, we find 

 three orders of Arachnida the Aranae, Opiliones and Acari 

 well represented by many genera and species, and by such 

 genera and species as exist and prosper at the same time under 

 entirely different conditions, as in the regions of the Sonoran 

 and even subtropical zones. 



These three orders seem especially adapted to a life in the 

 polar zone, for they not only exist in quite a number of species, 

 but also in a great number of specimens of each species. 

 General then Lieutenant Greety, commanding the late Lady 

 Franklin Bay expedition, states that he met in the summer 

 months at Ft. Conger (81 44 north latitude) with a rich insect 

 fauna: "Spiders, mosquitoes, flies, caterpillars, moths, and 

 Opiliones were frequently found in the immediate neighborhood 

 of our camp." 



My friend H. Biederbeck, the hospital steward of that expe 

 dition, informed me that they had prepared at Ft. Conger a 

 large collection of entomological specimens, amongst which 

 which were a great number of Arachnida. This valuable col- 



