Vol. XXvi] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 431 



Doings of Societies. 



Entomological Section, Academy of Natural Sciences of 



Philadelphia. 



Meeting of September 23, 1915. Mr. Philip Laurent, Director, pre- 

 siding. Nine persons were present. 



General. Mr. Frost mentioned Bayhead, New Jersey, as a good 

 collecting place. Mr. Hornig spoke of collecting near Alloway, New 

 Jersey, and exhibited the collection he had made at that place while 

 on a two weeks' vacation at the end of July. 



Lepidoptera. Dr. Skinner exhibited an aberration of Callosamia 

 cynthia taken in Philadelphia. The color was a deep smoky brown, 

 with the white markings nearly obsolete. 



Diptera.- Mr. R. C. Williams said he had been told that the ordi- 

 nary vacuum cleaner nozzle will frighten house flies, but if the nozzle 

 is made of glass the apparatus becomes very effective as a method of 

 catching flies. He said practically the same method has been used to 

 rid trees of insects. 



Hymenoptera.- Mr. Laurent stated that last March he had secured 

 the trunk of a Norway maple containing numbers of the larvae of 

 Trcmex colnmba. The first specimens emerged on June 16, two males. 

 From the i6th to the 23d of June, seventy males emerged, but only 

 three females. To the 26th of June, ninety-six males emerged and 

 ten females. From the 27th of June until the 7th of July only nine 

 males emerged, but 22 females. From the 8th of July until the 30th 

 of August the insects continued to emerge, but only 25 specimens made 

 their appearance during these fifty-four days. In all, one hundred 

 and sixty-two specimens emerged, 119 males and 43 females. He 

 was unable to find a sign of the cast-off pupa cases and had never 

 seen a male specimen, except in collections, in the thirty-seven years 

 he has been collecting, and said other collectors had had the same 

 experience. The insects could not be made to fly, although many 

 ways were tried. When a female was dropped from the hand, from 

 a point ten feet above ground, it would only flop to the ground. With 

 the males it was somewhat different; when they left the hand they 

 would sail downward like a flying squirrel, until they hit a tree 

 trunk or some other obstruction. 



Although males and females were kept in a separate cage they 

 could not be induced to copulate and none copulated in the main 

 cage containing the log. He had also reared from the log eleven 

 males and five females of the parasite, Mc<iarh\ssa Iniiiit<>r. as well 

 as a male and female of M. greenei Viereck. The sixteen specimens 

 of lunator emerged between May 8th and I2th. He said lunator was 

 not an internal parasite on Trcmex columba but an external one, and 

 commented on the proportion of parasites to host, 18 to 162. 



Coleoptera. Mr. G. M. Greene referred to the desirability of 

 mounting Coleoptera to show both the upper and under side and 



