Proceedings of the Section of Biology 227 



Mr. James Chapin exhibited a male American toad, Bufo 

 americanns, collected at Van Cortlandt Park, New York, about 

 April 16, 1909. This species has not been found on Staten 

 Island, where its place is taken by B. fowleri, but is rather com- 

 mon at the locality mentioned above. Most oi the American 

 toads at Van Cortlandt Park had ceased singing by April 22, 

 while Fowler's toad was first heard this year on April 17, by 

 Mr. Howard Pi. Cleaves. He showed also a four-toed sala- 

 mander, HemidactyUum scutatum, taken at Annandale, Staten 

 Island, on April 4, 1909. This is the only specimen of this 

 species that has been reported from Staten Island for some 

 years. 



Joint Meeting, May 8, 1909, with the Brooklyn Entomo- 

 logical Society and the New York Entomological 

 Society 



The meeting was held in the museum, Mr. Charles L. Pollard, 

 chairman of the section, presiding, and 25 persons present. 



After a brief address of welcome by the chairman and a vote 

 of thanks to Mr. C. A. Ingalls for furnishing his stereopticon, 

 Professor John B. Smith, president of the Brooklyn Entomo- 

 logical Society, took the chair. 



Mr. Charles Schaeffer, of the Museum of the Brooklyn In- 

 stitute, read a paper on Rudimentary and Vestigial Structures in 

 Insects. Rudimentary structures, he defined, are those which 

 are beginning to exist or are being evolved. Vestigial structures 

 are those which are diminishing in usefulness and tending to dis- 

 appear. Of rudimentary structures in insects none could be 

 quoted to a certainty. He exhibited a series of insects with 

 vestigial parts. In the Strategus group of the Scarabseid beetles 

 the thoracic horn conspicuous on the male is replaced by an 

 indentation on the females, but intergrading females show the 

 horns in a descending ^scale of size. The male humble bee of 

 several species shows vestiges of the pollen basket on the tibiae. 

 Where Coleoptera have become wingless there is usually a vestige 



