60 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Feb., '05 



Natural Sciences in Philadelphia had been censured for the 

 loss of Say's types, but in justice to the Academy it was 

 explained that at that time there was no entomologist in Phila- 

 delphia, and the Academy had sent the collection to T. W. 

 Harris to be cared for, and while in his hands it was destroyed. 



A set of several albums belonging to the American Ento- 

 mological Society was shown, which contained photographs of 

 very many of the older as well as contemporary entomologists. 

 All were invited to contribute photographs who had not 

 already done so. 



Mr. Rehn exhibited some old and rare books from the 

 library of the American Entomological Society and that of the 

 Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. 



Mr. Cook stated that the Gundlach collection of insects was 

 in excellent state of preservation in Havana, Cuba. Mr. 

 Cresson and others in Philadelphia had at one time worked on 

 this collection ; twenty-three years ago it had been put in her- 

 metically sealed boxes, only a few of which had become broken. 

 There were over 2000 species. The speaker had the proof of a 

 catalogue of the Coleoptera which had never been finally pub- 

 lished. Mr. Fox stated that many of Cressou's species were 

 in Poey's collection. Mr. Cook said that that collection was in 

 the University of Havana where were also Poey's fishes. 



In speaking of the Comstock-Needham system of wing 

 venation, Dr. MacGillivray stated that Prof. Comstock had 

 been successful in homologising the wing veins in most of the 

 different orders of insects. From the study of iVanoura he had 

 derived a hypothetical primitive type of venation, which 

 had closeh' corresponded with wings observed later. He 

 showed by diagrams the definite way specialization by reduc- 

 tion had taken place, as illustrated by the Radius. In the 

 case of saw-flies the radial sector arises from the base of the 

 stigma while in the higher Hymenoptera it appears to arise from 

 near the apex ; but he had recently proven that in reality 

 the base of the radial sector has been lost in all higher Hymen- 

 optera, and the radial cross-vein has assumed its function. 

 Mr. Daecke inquired how this system applied to such orders as 

 Odonata, where the veins were very numerous. Dr. Mac- 



