March, igiS-l PrOCEEDINC.S OF THE SOCIETY. 81 



crickfts, not only because of their singing quality which surpassed our native 

 species, but also because they were supposed to bring good luck. He had 

 seen people buying these insects in the markets, often keeping them in 

 specially prepared cages for the purpose. 



The president, Dr. Osburn, read a paper on the " Relation of Insects to 

 other Animals," particularly to the Arthropods. Reference was made par- 

 tcularly to the segmentation, appendages, nervous system and circulatory sys- 

 tem. The homologies in the different types were pointed out and diagrams 

 representng the subject were placed upon the blackboard. 



Professor Crosby referring to the statements made by J. Henri Fabre, 

 that wasps in stinging their victims to paralyze them, always selected the 

 position of their nervous ganglia, particularly of the head, for their deadly 

 thrust, asked whether this was true. The question was discussed by Messrs. 

 Schaeffer, Forbes, Dow and Barber. The opinion was generally expressed 

 that it was not so much the exact location of the ganglia as the weak point 

 in the armor of the insect which was selected; the ganglion above the oeso- 

 phagus being located close beneath the connection between the head and 

 thorax, where a softer tissue rendered easy the penetration of the sting. 



Meeting of January 19, 1915. 



A regular meeting of the New York Entomological Society was held 

 January 19, 1915, at 8:15 P. M., in the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, President Dr. Raymond C. Osburn in the chair, with 16 mcmbcis present. 



Mr. Dow reported receipt of letter from Dr. Walther Horn, in which 

 the safety of the Wytsman plant in Belgium was stated. 



Mr. Davis exhibited a copy of " The Aurelian or Natural History of 

 English Insects" by Moses Harris, published in 1766, a large quarto with 

 plates engraved and hand-colored by the author. Mr. Davis read several 

 extracts referring to the title derived from a society called the Aurelians, 

 which met when Moses Harris was a boy of 12 in the Swan Tavern in 

 Change Alley, until the building and their collection of insects was destroyed 

 by the fire in Cornhill ; also to the style of net used, and the method of 

 killing by pinching and thereafter stretching the specimens in the field, from 

 which he said the English practice of setting the insects low on the pins was 

 doubtless derived. Several passages of quaint phraseology were read, in 

 one of which the females were designated as hens and the males as cocks. 



Mr. Dow added that Moses Harris lived to see and figure in part, the 

 collection of 11,000 specimens accumulated by Drury. 



Mr. Davis, under the title " Remarks upon Some Insects Collected in 

 the Catskills " spoke of his visit in August to Intervale, the summer home 

 of Senator Howard R. Bayne, near East Jewett, N. Y., situated in a valley 

 running east and west in the northern part of the Catskills Mountains. The 

 insects shown were mostly collected in this valley and al an elevation 

 of about 2,000 feet; the mountains surrounding -the valley reach an ele- 



