June, 1914-] Proceedings of the Society. ' 177 



Meeting of February 18. 



A regular meeting of the New York Entomological Society was held 

 February 17, 1914, at 8:15 P. M., in the American Museum of Natural History, 

 President Raymond C. Osburn in the chair, and ten members present. 



]Mr. Barber read a paper on " Some Interesting Results of Collecting 

 Hemiptera in Virginia " in which he referred to the light thrown upon insect 

 distribution by his collections in 191 1 near Herndon, and in 1913 near Vienna, 

 about 12 miles west of Washington, D. C, where he found a rolling sandy 

 truck farming country with patches of deciduous and of coniferous forest, 

 not differing greatly from southern New Jersey. 



This region seems to be the southermost limit for many boreal species and 

 equally the northernmost limit for some austral species, while a few western 

 species also reach it, perhaps via the Cumberland Gap and the Potomac 

 River. After giving instances of each class, Mr. Barber described the three 

 avenues of dispersal for Sonoran insects as outlined by Webster and referred 

 particularly to the path via the Gulf States, and thence east of the Great 

 Fault by which such species have reached the Atlantic coast, dwelling especi- 

 ally on the Harlequin Cabbage Bug (Mnrgantia histrionica) which with Mr. 

 McAtlee he had found abundant at Chesapeake Beach on a wild cruciferous 

 plant. There also he had found many species by pulling up the grasses that 

 grew above high tide mark and shaking the roots over a cloth. 



Reviewing the principal species that were captured during the two sum- 

 mers, Mr. Barber pointed out repeatedly that often they were austral species 

 found here rarely if at all ; and that the abundance of certain groups had led 

 to the Washington entomologists giving those groups special attention, as 

 Nathan Banks has done in Etiiesa and Mr. Heideman in the Tingidse. 



The paper was discussed by Messrs. Comstock, Davis, Leng and Dr. 

 Osburn, the latter recalling that about 20 years ago the harlequin bug was 

 abundant in Central Ohio, but for two years only, a severe winter appar- 

 ently preventing its becoming a permanent resident, as it is in southern Ohio 

 and Indiana. 



Mr. Davis showed by Smith's List, page 136, that only in 1896 has this 

 insect ever reached destructive numbers in New Jersey. 



Mr. Davis exhibited a southern cricket, CycloptUum squamosum Scudder, 

 which he had found on Long Island, and read a memorandum relating thereto 

 which will be printed in Short Notes. He also exhibited a pamphlet on 

 Friendly Insects of Australia, and one issued by the South African Central 

 Locust Bureau, in which it was stated that brown locust eggs hatched after 

 3^ years' retention, a period that might be exceeded if the eggs had lain 

 imdisturbed in the soil. 



Mr. Leng read a note from Mr. Norman S. Easton, describing the 

 locality in which he had found Canthydnis puncticoUis. on submerged lumber 

 in slowly moving swamps, see page — ; also one from Charles Dury, in refer- 

 ence to Cioidcc, which will be found in Short Notes ; and a letter from Dr. 

 W. E. Britton, in reference to CoccincUida: being possibly double brooded. 



