14 PROCEEDINGS ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



in the snow trying to find poor old Ashmead's overshoes, which 

 he had lost, and while the search continued a stalwart figure in 

 hip-boots arrived and it proved to be Dr. C. Hart Merriam in 

 his north-western mountaineer garb, come to the meeting on 

 special invitation to hear a paper on the geographical distribu- 

 tion in the United States of certain insects injuring cultivated 

 crops, which was one of the early attempts to use Merriam's 

 now famous life-zone maps in a practical way. Everyone was 

 in goods spirits that night, and the geographic distribution dis- 

 cussion was a lively one. It covered the whole field of zoology 

 and botany. Ashmead contended among other things that par- 

 asites always followed their hosts and Doctor Merriam retort- 

 ed that he had never known the bedbug to occur in the Boreal 

 Zone, whereupon Doctor Gill stopped that part of the discus- 

 sion by the remark that we can not trust to negative evidence, 

 for upon negative evidence alone he himself would be inclined 

 to say that the bedbug does not occur in the city of Washington ! 



The social feature of the meetings of the Society has al- 

 ways been an important one. It is good to have more men. It 

 is especially good to have the great influx of young men who 

 have come to us since Congress has begun to be so liberal with 

 its appropriations. But it is nevertheless with regret that we 

 older fellows see the custom of meeting at one another's homes 

 pass away. This custom is revived for tonight by the warm- 

 hearted hospitality of Patten, that loyal member who has 

 struggled with our complicated accounts and large financial 

 transactions as treasurer of the Society for so many years. 

 P>ut this, in theatrical parlance, is a one-night stand only. We 

 think of the evenings in the homes of Riley, Marx, Schwarz, 

 Smith, Heidemann, Mann, Fox, Dodge, Fernow, Ashmead, 

 Gill, Marlatt, Stiles, Dyar, Patten, Pollard, Banks, Benton, 

 Chapin, Quaintance, and others, and of the charming meetings 

 in Baltimore with Uhler, with regret. The social feature is 

 retained, it is true, at our present enjoyable meetings at Saen- 

 gerbund Hall ; but they lack the intimate quality which ren- 

 dered the old ones (and this one, thanks to Patten) so de- 

 lightful. 



In those early days entomology and beer went together. 

 There were good reasons for this. Marx, Schwarz, Heidemann, 

 Pergande, Lugger, Schoenborn, Ulke, were all Teutons, as 

 their names indicate ; John B. Smith's real name is Johann 

 Schmidt. At that period the German university idea domi- 

 nated scientific America. There were thousands of young 

 Americans in the German universities each year. The Amer- 

 ican university students adopted in part the customs of the 



