740 



SCmNGE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 123. 



and Sterki. The speaker stated that there are 

 two great groups of Unios in North America. 

 The first is characterized by different forms of 

 shells and branchife in the male and female. 

 The shell of the latter is swollen in the post- 

 basal region, a character wanting in the male, 

 and the outer branchiae are developed in this 

 region into a marsupium. The shells of this 

 group are generally highly colored, without a 

 ridge on the dorsal slope, not arcuate, have 

 delicate beak sculpture, and the assemblage is 

 no doubt entitled to generic rank, for which 

 the name Lampsilis, proposed by Rafinesque and 

 again by Agassiz, may be used. 



In the other great group the shells of male and 

 female are essentially alike, being generally dull 

 in color and arcuate in old age, having usually 

 coarse beak sculpture and a posterior ridge. It 

 is not certain that the sexes are always sep- 

 arate. In one subdivision of this group the 

 shells are oval to oblong, and the embryos are 

 contained in the whole of the outer branchiae ; 

 in the other the shells are heavy, short, often 

 tuberculous, and have the embryos generally 

 distributed throughout all four leaves of the 

 branchiae. This great group is retained in 

 Unio, and it is believed that in anatomical 

 characters it closely agrees with the forms of 

 Europe. The Australasian Unios are very much 

 like those of South America in shell and ana- 

 tomical characters and are classed as a separate 

 genus, Diplodon. The two naiad faunas may 

 be relics of an older Northern fauna, which was 

 superseded by more modern forms, or it is pos- 

 sible that they may be parts of a Southern 

 fauna that has migrated along a now sunken 

 Antarctic continent. 



Mr. Harry C. Oberholser discussed ' the 

 American Golden Warblers,' with particular 

 reference to their geographical distribution. He 

 recognized twenty forms of this difficult group, 

 one-half of which he considered subspecies. 

 The Boreal and Austral regions of North 

 America and Mexico together possess five forms, 

 probably all races of a single species ; the Cen- 

 tral American subregion of the Neotropical has 

 four ; the Columbian subregion four ; and the 

 Antillean subregion seven. Various anomalies 

 of distribution were pointed out and com- 

 mented upon. 



Mr. T. Wayland Vaughan gave some ' Notes 

 on a Monograph of the Eocene Corals of the 

 States, ' stating that until recently they had not 

 been well understood, although the United 

 States possessed the richest Eocene coral fauna 

 of any country. The original species came 

 almost entirely from the Jackson stage and 

 Lower Claiborne beds, and the material was 

 often so water-worn as to be unrecognizable. 

 Certain genera are well characterized and easily 

 identified ; others are so close as to run to- 

 gether. Virginia and Maryland constitute one 

 fauna, containing their own peculiar species ; 

 the Gulf States constitute another, while Cali- 

 fornia contains only three species, all endemic. 

 This fauna as a whole belonged to shallow 

 rather than deep water. No species of the 

 American Eocene can be referred to the foreign 

 Eocene. P. A. Lucas, 



Secretary. 



AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 



A SPECIAL meeting of the New York section 

 of the American Chemical Society was held at 

 the College of the City of New York on Friday, 

 April 23d. Dr. C. B. Dudley, President of the 

 Society, presided. 



Dr. E. K. Dunham, of Carnegie Laboratory, 

 New York, read a paper on ' The Value of Bac- 

 teriological Examination of Water.' The dis- 

 cussion was opened by Dr. W. T. Sedgwick, 

 Director of the Biological Laboratory of the 

 Massachussets Institute of Technology. Dr. J. 

 J. Kinyoun, of the United States Marine Hos- 

 pital Service ; Dr. W. P. Mason, of the Troy 

 Polytechnic Institute ; Dr. A. R. Leeds, of Ste- 

 vens Institute, and others, expressed their views 

 and gave testimony to the independence of 

 chemical and bacteriological methods in the 

 study of water supply. 



An important point strongly insisted upon by 

 Dr. Sedgwick is the necessity for a personal in- 

 vestigation of the source from which a sample 

 of water is obtained, and he advises the chem- 

 ist and bacteriologist to refuse to report without 

 personal investigation of the sources of supply. 

 DuKAND Woodman, 

 Secretary. 



ERRATUM: P. 658, col. 1, line 25 for Mesopith- 

 ecus read Nesopitheous. 



