192 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



strength. The pressure is upwards in every direction to the sum 

 mit of the gorge. There a western current of air is met which 

 causes, in all probability, the impingement of these hundreds of 

 thousands of gossamer strands upon a given space of greater or 

 less dimensions. I wrote to Mr. -Lambert asking for specimens, 

 but, on account of its inaccessible location, he w r as able to get 

 only a small sample, which I exhibit herewith. 



The note is of interest as showing the fact that there are local 

 ities where the webs of gossamer spiders are massed together to 

 an extraordinary amount. Mr. Lembert says that the arches 

 recur year after year. What becomes of them? They are 

 plainly blown away by the winter storms. They are excessively 

 light ; the distance to which they could be carried is indefinite, 

 but it is perfectly conceivable that they might be carried for enor 

 mous distances, either directly by the wind or in dense clouds ; 

 and that they should be precipitated with rainfall from heavy 

 clouds at almost any distance from the point of origin is per 

 fectly within the bounds of possibility, and even probability. I 

 have little doubt that the California and Florida falls were brought 

 about in this way. Perhaps the California falls may have come 

 from one of these very arches, although Vallecita, the locality 

 from which Dr. Marx received his specimens, is three hundred 

 miles south of Yosemite. 



In discussing this paper Mr. Schwarz read an abstract of Mr. 

 J. Muir's work on the 'Sierras of California, in which this well- 

 known mountaineer vividly describes as follows what he pro 

 nounces the most magnificent of all storm phenomena : " Silvery 

 banners of snow dust attached to the peaks of the Merced group 

 like streamers at a masthead, each from half a mile to a mile in 

 length, slender at the point of attachment, then widening gradu 

 ally as it extended from the peak until it was about i ,000 or i ,500 

 feet in breadth. Some of these snow banners extended from peak 

 to peak, while others overlapped." Mr. Schwarz remarked that 

 there was, to say the least, the most remarkable resemblance be 

 tween the phenomena described by Mr. Lembert and Mr. Muir. 



Mr. Hopkins referred to his forthcoming list of North Ameri 

 can pine-insects, which contained forty-one species of Scolytidae 

 about twice the number of those previously recorded as depre 

 dating on pines. His list already contained the names of three 

 hundred and thirty-six different kinds of insects which infest 



