SOCIETIES. * 121 



and as usual numerous individuals remained flying about after the 

 main migratory swarm had passed. The three previous records 

 which Mr. Webster has made were on September 21st, 1892, in and 

 about Cleveland, Ohio, September 12th, 1902, at Urbana, Illinois, and 

 September 12th, 1912, in Washington. He makes no suggestion as to 

 the reason of the migration of 1913 being more than a month later 

 than either of the three he had previously recorded. 



In a recent separatum issued by the Smithsonian Institution, 

 Washington, United States National Museum, Mr. William Schaus 

 describes 136 new species of Noctuid moths from tropical America, 

 and he also describes several new genera. As to where these species 

 come in, and to what other species they are related, there is not the 

 remotest indication. The descriptions are perfectly abstract, without 

 the slightest indication of comparison with any previously existing 

 species. The new genera are not dift'erentiated from any existing 

 genera, and throughout the whole of some 60 pages, not a suggestion 

 of the previous existence of any species of the group is to be found. 

 In the six lines of introduction the author states, " They have been 

 carefully compared with the described species in the great European 

 collections." Surely the facts in this "careful comparison " should have 

 been given in full, and we go so far as to say that the descriptions are 

 worse than useless, when all the, to us, most important part is left out. 

 There should have been inserted clear indications to what species these 

 new ones were related, to what group in a genus they could be placed, 

 their special differential character or characters, and with the new 

 genera, tables to show where they come in, to what existing genera 

 they were related and what the group of characters were which justified 

 the creation of the new genus. We question whether the publication 

 can be made use of in the absence of the insects from which it was 

 drawn up and the museum series among which they have been inserted. 



SOCIETIES. 



Entomological Society of London. — November 5tJi, 1913. — Mr. 

 A. P. Semenoff Tian-Shanski was elected an Honorary Fellow in the 

 place of the late Prof. 0. M. Eeuter. The following gentlemen 

 were elected Fellows of the Society : — Messrs. Hugh W^arren Bedford, 

 Church Felles, Horley ; Harold S. Cheavin, F.R.M.S., F.N.P.S., 

 Clematis House, Somerset Road, Huddersfield ; Charles Alban 

 William Duffield, Stowting Rectory, Hythe, and Wye College, 

 Kent; W. Egmont Kirby, M.D., Hilden, 46, Sutton Court Road, 

 Chiswick, W. ; Louis Meaden, Melbourne, Dyke Road, Preston, 

 Brighton ; F. V. Bruce Miller, Livingston, N. Rhodesia ; Alexander 

 David Peacock, 137, Wingrove Gardens, and Armstrong College, 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne; H. Ananthaswamy Rao, Curator of the Govt. 

 Museum, Bangalore, India ; Percival Nathan Whitley, New College, 

 Oxford, and Brankwood, Halifax. Title of the Society. — The 

 question of the change of title of the Society was opened for discussion 

 from the chair, but the preponderance of feeling appeared to be some- 

 what against any change. Wicken Fen.' — The President brought 

 before the meeting the necessity of forming a fund for the care of that 

 portion of Wicken Fen left by the late Mr. G. H. Verrall to the 

 National Trust, and at his request Mr. Rowland-Brown expressed his 



