36 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 53. 



has demonstrated the sincerity of her intention 

 to lead a ditFerent life. The patrons of the 

 Yoshiwara are required to register their names, 

 residences and occupations in boolis that are 

 always accessible to the public and the police, 

 and an account of their expenditures is accur- 

 ately kept. 



Mr. Curtis asserts that this system has been 

 remarkably successful both from a sanitary and 

 a moral point of view. 



KNTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



The 112th regular meeting was held Decem- 

 ber 5, 1895. Mr. Hubbard read a paper on 

 ' Distribution of Certain Species of Mytilaspis. ' 

 He spoke of the unreliability of tradition and 

 early records as a source of exact knowledge 

 concerning the introduction and spread from one 

 country to another of scale insects which are so 

 easily transported and difficult of specific identi- 

 fication. He refered particularly to the pub- 

 lished accounts of the introduction into Florida 

 of Mytilaspis gloveri and M. citricola. The former 

 is supposed to have been brought to Mandarin 

 in 1838 by Mr. Robinson, on two trees obtained 

 in New York from a ship which came from 

 China, and the latter was said to have been 

 brought to Florida some years later upon 

 lemons from Bermuda. According to the 

 speaker, both of these positive statements, 

 hitherto unchallenged, are probably erroneous. 

 The insect mentioned by Glover as having been 

 brought from Bermuda is not a Mytilaspis, and 

 M. citricola at that time had not yet reached 

 Europe from the East. It certainly did not 

 reach Florida much before 1880. M. gloveri is 

 to-day the principal pest of the orange in the 

 interior of Mexico, and it is probable that it 

 was introduced with the orange into Florida 

 and Mexico by the Spaniards at the end of the 

 16th or beginniug of the 17th century. Its ap- 

 pearance in 1838 was only the continuation of 

 an epidemic of Coccid pests of the orange 

 which is known to have overwhelmed the citrus 

 plantations of Europe in the early part of the 

 century, and to have spread westward some- 

 time later to the Azores, Canaries, and finally 

 to Bermuda. The speaker suggested that the 

 obvious tendency to variation in form and 

 thickness among the scales of Mytilaspis had 



produced in North America fi-om an original 

 tropical species M. pomorum, M. citricola and M. 

 gloveri. 



Dr. Stiles exhibited a Dermestes larva taken 

 from a corpse 3 to 6 months after death. He 

 referred to the statement by Megnin in his ' La 

 Faune des Cadavres,' that the period ft-om 

 burial of a corpse to its final dissolution may be 

 divided into eight portions, each of these por- 

 tions being characterized by the presence of a 

 different series of insects. In regard to the 

 manner in which insects gain access to a corpse, 

 Mr. Hubbard said that with the Diptera the egg 

 must be deposited on the outside of the coffin 

 before burial, since he does not believe it possi- 

 ble for the young larva to make its way through 

 the soil after burial. Dr. Stiles said that he 

 did not agree with Megnin in many of his con- 

 clusions, but considered the field a very inter- 

 esting one for investigation by entomologists. 

 L. O. Howard, 



Secretary. 



[Abstract of report by D. W. Coquillett, 

 Acting Secretary.] 



ACADEMY OF SCIENCE, ST. LOUIS, DECEMBER 

 16, 1895. 



The Academy held its regular meeting at 

 the Academy rooms with President Green in 

 the chair and twenty-eight members and visi- 

 tors present. 



The committee to nominate officers for the 

 ensuing year made report of following nomina- 

 tions : 



President, Jlelvin L. Gray. 

 1st Vice-President, Edmund A. Engler. 

 2d Vice-President, Robert Moore. 

 Corresponding Secretary, Allerton S. Cushman. 

 Recording Secretary, Wm. Trelease. 

 Treasurer, Enno Sander. 

 Librarian, Gustav Hambach. 

 Directors, John Green, Adolph Hertliel. 

 Curators, Julius Hurter, Herbert A. Wheeler, 

 George R. Olshausen. 



Prof. J. H. Kinealy presented his new in- 

 strument for testing the purity of air in build- 

 ings and gave an explanation of the method 

 employed. 



A. W. Douglas, 

 Recording Secretary. 



