Oct., '06] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 311 



are assisting in the office. There arc other assistants besides those 

 who are college graduates, but who are doing most excellent work 

 in a line that is greatly needed in this State at the present time. 

 The entomologists to the Board of Agriculture of the State are Frank- 

 lin Menges, York County, and D. J. Waller, Indiana County. 



TAUGHT BY AN INSECT. Brunei, the famous engineer, was indebted 

 to an insect for a great and useful invention. He was in a shipyard one 

 day watching the movements of an insect known in English as the 

 naval woodworm, when a brilliant thought suddenly occurred to him. 

 He saw that this creature bored its way into a large piece of wood upon 

 which it was operating by means of a very extraordinary mechanical 

 apparatus. 



Looking at the animal attentively through a microscope, he found 

 that it was covered in front with a pair of valvular shells ; that with its 

 foot as a purchase it communicated rotary motion and a forward 

 impulse to the valves, which, acting upon the wood like a gimlet, pene- 

 trated its substance, and that as the particles of wood loosened they 

 passed through a fissure in the feet and thence through the body of the 

 borer to its mouth, where they were soon expelled. 



"Here," said Brunei to himself, "is the sort of thing I want. Can I 

 reproduce it in an artificial form?" He forthwith set to work, and the 

 final result of his labors, after many failures, was the famous boring 

 shield with which the Thames tunnel was excavated. Newspaper. 



Doings of Societies. 



The postponed meeting of the Feldman Collecting Social of 

 June 20, 1906, was held on the evening of June 27, 1906, 

 at the residence of Mr. H. W. Wenzel, 1523 S. I3th Street, 

 Philadelphia. The meeting was called to order at 9.10 P. M., 

 President Daecke presiding. Eight members were present. 



Mr. Harbeck called attention to an omission in the com- 

 munication of Mr. Daecke of last meeting, regarding the raising 

 of Balininus larvae. From ten chestnuts twenty-five larvae had 

 emerged, which were found this spring, dead and dried up in 

 the hatching jars. 



Mr. Sciss spoke of some egg masses of Tcnodcra sincnsis 

 he had received from Mr. Laurent, October 5. He had first 

 observed the young on May 18, 1906, when batch one was 

 hatched, batch two was found May 20, while three was ob- 

 served May 24. He stated that when first hatched, they were 



