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THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



June G, 1889. — Mr. Ashmead read a letter, which he hatl recently received from Mr. 

 D. Redmond, of St. Nicholas, Fla., in contirmation of his (Ashmead's) statements re- 

 garding the leaf-eating habits of a Florida spider made at the meeting of the society 

 in December last (Insect Life, Vol. i, p. 200). Mr. Redmond wrote that tbe destruc- 

 tion of the trees, which occurred in the spring and early summer, was effected by the 

 spiders eating all the thick portion of the leaf, as a silk-worm eats the mulberry, and 

 also by gumming up and sticking the leaves together by means of some adhesive secre- 

 tion. Dr. Marx held that while the spiders might cut ofi' the leaves and web them to- 

 gether, a study of the mouth parts makes it questionable whether any spider is phyto- 

 phagous, which opinion was also held by Mr. W. M. Wheeler. Mr. Howard thought 

 that Tortricid larvie, probably abundant but overlooked, had attracted the spiders. 



Mr. Schwarz read and commented on portions of a letter by Henry Stanley to the 

 Royal Geographical Society of England, referring to certain insects observed in Cen- 

 tral Africa — a small gray caterpillar (Lagoa?) and a spider ( Theraphosidw) — and to 

 poisoned arrows used by the natives, the poison of which is obtained by boiling the 

 dried and powdered bodies of red arts in palm oil. 



In a note on Brood YIII of the Periodical Cicada Mr. Schwarz recorded its appear- 

 ance, May 19-21, this season in limited numbers at Harper's Ferry, District of 

 Columbia, and in Alexandria County, Va. At Harper's Ferry all the Cicadas seen 

 were on a clearing surrounded by woods, and Mr. Schwarz pointed out that under 

 such conditions the development of the Cicadas is no doubt accelerated by the in- 

 creased warmth of the soil within the clearings. 



Mr. Schwarz also presented for publication a paper recording the food habits and 

 food plants of a number of Coleoptera, chielly Rhynchophora. 



Dr. Marx read a paper on the morphology of Filistata capitata Hentz., in which he 

 described a remarkable comb-like organ on the inner surface of the inferior spinnerets 

 which has the function of an accessory calamisirum. He also made some observations 

 on the value in classifications of the three or four stigmatal openings to the lungs, 

 dividing the Araneina into Tri-sticta and Tetra-sticta. He had found a rudimentary 

 fourth stigma in the species under consideration, showing that it had hitherto been 

 wrongly placed in the first of the groups mentioned. The paper was accompanied 

 hy careful drawings illustrating the various points discussed. 



C. L. Marlatt, 

 Acting Recording Secretary. 



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