liv 



While, therefore, there is no longer much scientific interest attaching 

 merely to descriptions of the appearance of this insect and to its ordinary 

 history, its almost world-wide dispersion, the variations in habit which 

 it exhibits in accommodating itself to diverse climatic conditions, the new 

 parasitic and predaceous foes which it is likely to acquire after each im- 

 portant migration, and last, but not least, the losses which it is sure to 

 occasion to the producing classes, combine to make it worthy of consider- 

 ation by the scientist as well as the economist, and make it appropriate 

 that its advent into the vicinity of St. Louis should be recorded in the 

 archives of this Society. 



Dr. Engelmann read the following note on the temperature of 

 February and the past month : 



After that extraordinarily warm January the past February seemed cold, 

 but if we examine the records we find that its mean temperature was 39°.!, 

 or nearly four degrees higher than the mean for February (35°. 2) nor- 

 mally is ; but we have had it warmer in February in former years eleven 

 times, and in 1S45 the mean for February reached 5 degrees higher, viz. 

 to 44°. I. 



The winter is now past, and in casting a glance at its mean tempera- 

 ture we find it exactly the same as the mean for February, viz. 39°.!, which 

 is nearly 6 degrees warmer than the average winter temperature in St. 

 Louis, viz. 33°. 4. I find in 45 years only three winters as warm or warm- 

 er; they were those of 1844-5, ^875-6, and the past one. 



Winter 1845-6. 1875-6. 1S79-S0. Average 



45 yeats. 



December 36^.6 4i^-9 32°-5 33°-7 



January 4° -5 39-4 45-6 31 -8 



February 44 ■ i 39-3 39 -i 35-3 



Mean winter temperature 40°-4 40°. 2 39°.! 33°-4 



From this little table it appears that in the first two mild winters the 

 temperature of every month was proportionatelj' above the average, while 

 in the second one December was by far the warmest, and in the past one 

 January exceeded both of the other months, and December remained 

 below the average. The normal state of the temperature is that January 

 is the coldest, December the next, and February the warmest of the three 

 winter months. • 



The coldest weather in the whole winter we have just had was in De» 

 cember, when on the 25th the temperature fell below zero; and the river 

 was full of running ice for the latter half of the month. But, just as in 

 the past summer, we had no very violent changes — in other years not 

 uncommon in our inland climate — and no excessive temperatures. 



