678 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 70. 



Barton W. Evermann described the spawning 

 habits of the Blueback and the Chinooli Sal- 

 mon, species which had been especially investi- 

 gated by him during 1894 and 1895. These 

 species have important spawning grounds at the 

 headwaters of the Salmon and Payette rivers 

 in Idaho. This paper gave an account of the 

 manner in which the investigations were con- 

 ducted and a statement of the more important 

 results obtained. 



These two species of salmon are, of course, 

 anadromous, living in the sea, and entering 

 fresh water only for spawning purposes. They 

 enter the Columbia from the sea in the early 

 spring and reach the headwaters of Salmon 

 River over 1,000 miles from the sea, about the 

 last week in July. The spawning began about 

 the middle of August and continued for fully a 

 month. 



It has long been known that at spaAvning 

 time these salmon have their fins more or less 

 worn out and their bodies covered with mutila- 

 tions, and these injuries were believed to have 

 been received while on the long journey to the 

 spawning grounds. But this was proved not to 

 be true. More than 2,000 .salmon were exam- 

 ined as they arrived upon the spawning beds 

 and not one showed any mutilations of any 

 kind. 



As the spawning advanced the fish began to 

 show mutilations ; the caudal, anal and ventral 

 fins became badly worn, and often the dorsal 

 fin and the sides of the back were injured. By 

 the time the spawning was at its height, scarcely 

 a fish was wholly free from mutilations. The 

 fish were observed daily during the entire 

 sjaawning period and it was discovered that all 

 the mutilations were received while on the 

 spawning beds, chiefly in moving the gravel of 

 the spawning beds about, but to some little ex- 

 tent in personal encounters between the males. 



The second important fact determined was 

 that, after spawning, the salmon coming to that 

 region die, none of them ever returning to the 

 sea. They began dying soon after they had done 

 spawning. On September 7th 1,100 redfish or 

 blue-back salmon were counted in the inlet to 

 Alturas Lake. On September 16th only 213 were 

 left, and on September 22d there were scarcely 

 any left. None had been caught out of the 



stream, but all had died. The fish showed no 

 tendency to return down stream. 



F. A. Lucas, 

 Secretary. 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 

 APRIL 11, 1896. 



The 116th regular meeting was held in Balti- 

 more on invitation of Mr. P. R. Uhler. Mr. 

 Howard exhibited specimens of Margarodea 

 vitium Giard, from South Africa. The locality 

 is a new one, as the species has previously been 

 found only in Chile and Argentina. Referring 

 to a recent note by Valery Mayet, Mr. Howard 

 suggested that the insect is now likely to be 

 carried to many parts of the world in any 

 earth which may occur around exported plants. 

 Mr. Schwartz exhibited specimens of Coleocems 

 marmoratus and an undescribed Tychius, to 

 illustrate two modes of variation brought about 

 by different position and development of the 

 scales. In the Coleocems, some specimens are 

 uniformly covered with large white scales, 

 which in others are replaced in spots by brown 

 scales of smaller size. In the Tychius some 

 specimens have the elytra variegated with 

 spots and lines composed of large white scales ; 

 in other specimens the positions which should 

 be occupied by these scales are covered with a 

 spongy mass which a high magnifying power 

 shows to be composed of the white scales in a 

 collapsed or undeveloped condition. In these 

 specimens the development of the scales has 

 apparently been arrested. Mr. Schwarz alsa 

 exhibited a new Apion and two species of An- 

 thonomus, one new and the other A. leitcostiotus 

 Dietz, which he had reared from the seeds of 

 Xanthoxylum pterota, at San Diego, Texas. 



Dr. Henry Skinner, of Philadelphia, read a 

 paper embodying his views on specific values, 

 and illustrated his remarks with many ex- 

 amples drawn from the Rhoyalocera, insisting- 

 that morphological species are tentative and 

 must be tested by a study of the life history 

 and geographical distribution. 



Mr. Ashmead read a paper on the genera 

 Stephanus, Megischus and Megalyra and their 

 position in the Hymenoptera, concluding that 

 the family Stephaidce does not deserve family 

 rank and that the three genera should be 



