172 Staten Island Association of Arts and Sciences 



p. 140), and described the menhaden fishery as carried on in the 

 lower bay. 



Dr. Arthur Hollick commented on the same fishery. 



Mr. Alanson Skinner showed a Delaware Indian mortar of 

 wood hollowed by fire, from Marlton, Burlington Co., New 

 Jersey; also a red screech owl caught in a hollow apple tree on 

 Richmond Hill, Staten Island, November 14, 1908. 



Mr. James Chapin showed an abnormal specimen of the ring- 

 necked snake, Diadophis punctatus, captured in New Brighton 

 on May 17, 1907. The whole of the upper parts of this specimen 

 are usually light in color and there is a narrow yellow line along 

 the middle of the back. He showed also an adult female and a 

 young female red-backed mouse, Evotomys gapperi, trapped in a 

 small white cedar swamp at the south end of Lake Hopatcong, 

 New Jersey, on August 29 and 30, 1908; also a female long-tailed 

 shrew, Sorex personatus, from Helmetta, New Jersey, September, 

 1908. The skin of a purple sandpiper, Arquatella maritima, 

 killed at Crooke's Point, November 3, 1908, was also shown. 



December 12, 1908 



The meeting was held in the museum. 



The chairman announced the death by drowning, on December 

 6, of Joseph H. Painter, Botanical Assistant in the United States 

 National Museum. 



The program for the evening had been announced, in advance, 

 in the notices of the meeting, as a symposium on Natural Hybrids 

 among Ferns and Other Plants, the subject to be introduced by 

 Mr. William R. Maxon, Assistant Curator in the United States 

 National Museum. Mr. Maxon first mentioned the fact that he 

 had noticed the fronds of Dryopteris simulata Dav. in Maryland 

 attacked by an insect, which had spun a fine web and drawn the 

 pinnse of the tips together. He spoke next somewhat at length 

 on fern hybrids, referring to the chances for hybridization among 

 certain kinds of ferns and offering a number of suggestions and 

 questions for consideration. He called attention to the fact 



