58 ENTOMOlvOGlCAlv NEWS. [Feb.,'19 



Feldman Collecting Social. 



Meeting of September i8th, 1918, at the home of H. W. Wenzel, 

 5614. Stewart Street, Philadelphia ; ten members present. President 

 H. W. Wenzel in the chair. 



Lepidoptera. — Mr. Hairnbach mentioned Eucosma adamantana Gn., 

 a species described from Lapland and never seen again from that time 

 until rediscovered by Mr. Daecke in New Jersey sixty years later. Said 

 he had gone to Lucaston on September 12 and, though it v/as the 

 proper time and he worked over the ground for six hours, he was 

 unable to get a single specimen. Also said he has bred thousands of 

 Callosamia promcthca Dru. and this year was about to liberate 

 several specimens when he noticed an odd form which proved to be 

 the aberration caeca described from a unique female from New York 

 by Cockerell in Packard's Monograph of the Bombycine Moths of 

 North America III, p. 228, 1914, and the type presented to the United 

 States National Museum. 



Coleoptera. — Dr. Castle said his annual trip to Maryland was a 

 complete failure though he had gone a week later than usual. All 

 species which were generally common were not found at all. Exhibited 

 specimens of Popillia japonica Newm., the Japanese pest, which he had 

 gotten at Riverton, New Jersey, IX-I, saying they will eat anything, 

 that boys are paid to gather them and bring them in by the quart. 



Diptera. — Mr. Hornig recorded a species of mosquito, as new to 

 this vicinity, Acdcs currici Coquillett, from the northwest, and found 

 here under the same conditions and in the same place with the swamp 

 mosquito. — Geo. M. Greene. Sec'y. 



OBITUARY. 



Victor Arthur Erich Daecke. 



In the News for December last we briefly announced the 

 death of our fellow member of the Advisory Committee at 

 Richmond Hill, Long Island, New York, on October 28, 1918. 

 Thanks to the kindness of his sister, Mrs. Jenny Schwensen, 

 of that town, we are able to give some data on his early 

 life. 



E. Daecke, as his autograph appears on letters of the past 

 year, was born at Scharnikan, in the province of Posen, Ger- 

 many, March 28, 1863, and was the son of Julius and Augusta 

 Daecke. Most of his early years were spent in Bromberg, 

 Germany, where he attended the Gymnasium and the Real 



