ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Mr. Waite pointed out the advantage enjoyed by the student of 

 vegetable parasitic relations from the fact that in this field para 

 sites are always fixed and no difficulty is experienced in determin 

 ing the host, the only subject for question being whether the host 

 is living or dead. 



Professor Gill, after referring to the breadth of the subject and 

 the impossibility, on this account, of discussing it with any 

 degree of minuteness, gave, as his opinion, that plants and 

 animals may manifest a parasitic relation with regard to each 

 other, and discussed at some length the differences separating 

 animals from plants. Speaking of the presidential address, in 

 which the true parasites in insects were limited to certain families 

 of the Hymenoptera, in the strict sense, he suggested that these 

 latter (Chalcidids, etc.) sustain rather an intermediate relation 

 between the typical parasite, as the intestinal worm, and such 

 insects as the various wasps which stored their nests with spiders. 

 The typical parasite, he said, shows a great deviation from the 

 normal structure as the result of its parasitic relationship, and he 

 pointed out the nature of such modification, especially in the 

 Mollusks and Crustaceans, giving a number of interesting illustra 

 tions. He said that parasites occur in all polytypic classes in 

 animal life, except, perhaps, the Vertebrata, and in these, in the case 

 of fishes, certain forms are pseudo-parasitic, but are not examples 

 of very excessive modifications in consequence. A striking exam 

 ple, however, of modification in fishes was illustrated by the suck 

 ing disk of certain forms. Mr. Schwarz was of the opinion that 

 Leuckart's system of classification is too widely drawn to apply 

 to insects, and should be considered rather as applying to the 

 general subject of parasitism wherever manifested. 



Prof. Riley, in summing up and closing the discussion, stated 

 that he had been very much pleased with the various facts and 

 ideas which the discussion of his address had brought out. but 

 had not been led, by anything that had been said, to change in 

 any way the conclusions reached by him ; as, for instance, the 

 term parasitism, as applied to insects, on account of the pecu 

 liarity and diversity of the facts, requires special definition. 

 With reference to Prof. Fernow's remarks, he stated that it was 

 impossible to make a strict and circumscribed definition, because 

 in the broad sense all living things are parasitic. He believed 



