1864.] 207 



STATED MEETING, September 12. 



President Bland in the Chair. 



On report of the respective Committees, the following Papers were 

 ordered to be published. 



ON CERTAIN ENTOMOLOGICAL SPECULATIONS OF THE NEW ENGLAND 



SCHOOL OF NATURALISTS. 



BY BENJ. D. WALSH, M. A. 



I. In Prof. Agassiz's Book on Lake Superior, he asserts in the most 

 unqualified manner that the Insects of the temperate zone of North 

 America " differ specifically throughout" from those of Europe. And 

 subsequently he remarks that '' quite a number of European insects 

 have been introduced into this country along with plants, among which 

 may be mentioned some showy butterflies, as V<tnessa Atalanta, car dm 

 and Antiojxi, which are very erroneously considered by some entomo- 

 logists as native Americans." (Pp. 187, 190.) 



This assertion is the more startling, because he himself catalogues in 

 the same work a very great number of plants as common to the tem- 

 perate zones of North America and Europe, some of which he consid- 

 ers as introduced, while at the same time he distinctly states that he 

 does not intend to deny the fact of others being indigenous both in 

 North America and in Europe, (t'hid p. 187); and because the very same 

 work that contains the above remarks contains also a list of Coleoptera 

 by Dr. LeConte, in which several species are enumerated as in his 

 opinion common to both Continents,* and at the conclusion of which 

 it is expressly asserted by that author, that there are certain rare cases 

 in which " the same species, or organic forms so similar as to present 



* E. g. Bembidium i-maculatum Lin., Upis ceramboides Fabr., Sippodamia 13- 

 pictictata Lin., and Coccinella Ib-punctata Oliv. 



