OF WASHINGTON, VOLUME XI, 1909. 15 



German university students. Some of us had been in Germany. 

 . \shmeacl spent a year in lierlin. Stiles, having returned to this 

 country, hardly knew whether he was speaking English or 

 German. 



The after meetings of the Entomological Society were inter- 

 esting; the conversation was good: the refreshments were un- 

 limited in quantity but limited in kind; you could have light 

 beer or dark beer, and that was about the extent of the varia- 

 tion. It was my custom to order two cases of beer, each of 24 

 bottles, for an average attendance of 7 or 8, and I always made 

 the arrangement with the grocer to return those bottles which 

 were not empty, as well as the empty ones, but it soon became 

 a standing joke between us that it was unnecessary to make 

 any provision concerning the nnempty bottles. I am not sure 

 that this custom, which no longer holds, was a good one. 

 I am not sure that it was a very bad one. So far as I know, 

 it never seriously affected the health of any of the members, 

 but on the whole perhaps it was unfortunate and I am inclined 

 to believe that the present method is the best. I should dislike 

 to see some of the younger members of the Society drink as 

 much beer as some of us did at their ages, and. while I would 

 not vote the prohibition ticket as Banks does, I believe that 

 I'.anks was about right when the Society met at his house for 

 the first time and he gave us hot lemonade and cold lemonade 

 and some very excellent raisin cake. It is true that a few 

 glasses of beer will make a stupid remark sound witty, but 

 there was no necessity for any such stimulus to the imagination 

 in the old days, because all of the remarks were witty. 



There are so few of us left that it will be interesting perhaps 

 to say something about the men who attended that organiza- 

 tion meeting in 1884. Doctor Barnard was an extremely tall 

 man. 6 feet 3 at least, very slender, with a full blond beard. 

 He had been a professor in lo\\a. an inspector at Pennikese 

 under Agassiz, had occupied Comstock's chair at Cornell while 

 ('omstock was in Washington, and was now working away on 

 machinery with which to fight the cotton caterpillar, and wa> 

 principally interested in the perfection of the cyclone nozzle. 



Albert Koebele was a young German of about 27 or 28, 

 recently come from New York, where Professor Riley had 

 met him at one of the meetings of the P.rooklyn Entomological 

 Society, and was acting as preparator in the Division of Ento- 

 mology. His fnltnv successes in discovering and importing 

 \<>7'ius cardinally and other beneficial insects were as yet little 

 dreamed of. 



Judge Laurence Johnson was a man of perhaps 55 or 60years 



