42 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol.X 



Nevertheless any collector of insects can add not a little to his income 

 by selling, not rare specimens, but common things taken in large lots, 

 suitable for biological study, especially in colleges. The giant water bugs, 

 Belostoma or Benacus, always fetch a good price considering that if one 

 sees a swarm at electric light a quart pail could be filled with then in 

 half an hour. The plexippus butterfly is the type for study in the schools 

 of many states and the dealers handle tens of thousands each year. 

 Pupae and cocoons are always in some demand. 



It is pleasant, but not profitable, reading that the type of the beetle, 

 Amblychila cylindriformis, fetched $300, and the second specimen $50. It 

 can now be bought for 50 cents. The first two Sphinx franckii captured 

 were bought for not less than $300 each, but they have since been bred 

 in numbers. 



Prolonged discussion followed, especially of reminiscences by Messrs. 

 Franck and Doll. A Scotchman is said to have paid $2,000 for a Drurya 

 antimachus, when this remarkable species from Africa was almost un- 

 known. He willed this specimen to the famous Strecker. Rothschild is 

 said to have paid $1,500 for his first specimen. Since the world has grown 

 smaller they have sold as low as $7 each. Neumogen is said to have paid 

 $700 for a single specimen of some butterfly. Rothschild paid $2,000 for 

 the Meyer collection, its only great rarity being the Actias Jehovah which 

 Strecker described and afterwards wrote at great length defending his 

 choice of a name. A New Jersey collector had two aberrant Papilio, one 

 turnus, the other troilus. The first dealer applied to bid $5 for the pair. 

 Another dealer, one of our members, secured them for $20. One fetched 

 from the ultimate collector $350, the other $200. A big price would joy- 

 ously be paid for a Vanessa antiopa, if provably caught on British soil. 

 Caught elsewhere it is not worth a cent. One species has become extinct 

 in modern times, a little Chrisophanes, the English haunt of which has been 

 drained. Big prices have been recorded for historic specimens, types from 

 which the masters described well-known species. 



The regular meeting was held December 10, with President Davis in the 

 chair, and twelve other members present. 



Mr. Weeks reported a specimen of Xylorictes satyrus, alive and kicking 

 November 20. Mr. Frank read a paper on the experiences of his last 

 winter in Florida. It covered his southward progress from Chattanooga, 

 Tenn., to St. Petersburg, Fla. It spoke of the difficulty of collecting, 

 avoiding rattlesnakes, of the daily catch with a diary of weather and 

 captures each day, of the species taken singly or in vast abundance and of 

 a thousand and one details impossible to enumerate until his whole record 

 may be printed. — R. P. Dow, Recording Secretary. 



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