122 Journal New York Entomological Society, ["^'o'- xxvi. 



Referring to a Tibicen aulctes with part of its thorax eaten, Mr. Brower 

 writes under date of January 30, 1918, " Yes, I rescued the specimen of 

 Tibicen aiiletes from a cuckoo and I have seen them chase many specimens 

 and eat some. I spent the month of August and early September in the hills 

 and both the Cicadas and the yellow-billed cuckoo were common. The 

 cuckoo is usually shy, but when after a Cicada it is not so, as I have often 

 thrown rocks at them to chase them away. I have seen them listen to the 

 Cicada singing for a moment, and then fly to the tree and begin an immediate 

 search for the insect, and the Cicadas certainly dread the presence of the 

 Cuckoo. 



Meeting of February 19. 



A regular meeting of the New York Entomological Society was held Feb- 

 ruary 19, 1918, at 8:00 P. M., in the American Museum of Natural History, 

 President Lewis B. Woodruff in the chair, with seventeen members and five 

 visitors present, including Dr. Avinoflf of Russia. 



Mr. E. L. Bell, 438 Amity St., Flushing, N. Y., was elected an active 

 member of the -Society. 



Mr. Olsen read a paper on '" Collecting at Woods Hole, Mass.," illustrated 

 by photographs of the locality and several boxes of specimens. After de- 

 scribing the physical characteristics of the boulder-stream coast and adjoining 

 marsh and woodland, and the equipment of the Marine Biological Laboratory, 

 Mr. Olsen spoke of the Hemiptera captured, of which a list is appended to 

 the original minutes. 



Dr. Avinoff, after exhibiting 100 original colored plates by John Abbott, 

 spoke of the " Boundary of the Paljearctic Region as illustrated by the Dis- 

 tribution of Rhopalocera " saying in part that precision in zoogeography was 

 best attained by studying the distribution of species, being careful, however, 

 to note the territory in which the species was abundant as opposed to that in 

 which it was occasional. By combining such studies for many species, certain 

 regions and subregions might be delimited, each surrounded by an additional 

 area in which its influence was appreciable. Dr. Avinoff exhibited a number 

 of maps on which the distribution of individual species of Rhopalocera had 

 been indicated and a map of the Palsearctic Region with its boundaries ascer- 

 tained from the combined distribution data. On this map a Transition area, 

 in which the Palaearctic influence was appreciable but not dominant, was ex- 

 cluded ; and in a general way it was found to coincide better with the early 

 ideas of Wallace than with the recent map of Dr. Pagenstecher. Dr. Avinoft' 

 regarded the Chinese subregion as a part of the Indo-Malayan, and the Arabian 

 as a modification of the African, rather than of the Palaearctic, though in 

 both the Palsearctic influence could be traced. 



The area of dispersion outside a province often results in its influence 

 being superimposed upon the indigenous fauna, so that in Turkestan, for in- 

 stance, two such areas of dispersion can be traced in one place. 



Touching the American Fauna Dr. Avinoflf said the Palaearctic influence 



