624 PROCEEDINGS OF ST. LOUIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE ST. LOUIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



A regular meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Science was held Nov. 

 5th, at the Polytechnic Building. The chair was taken by Prof. Riley. 

 There were also present, Dr. Engelmann, Judge Holmes, VV^. T. Harris, Dr. 

 Alleyne, Dr. Forbes, M. L. G-ray, F. W. Raeder, Willis N. Graves, Judge 

 Albert Todd, O. W. Collett, and F. B. Nipher, Secretary. 



After routine business had been disposed of, Judge Holmes made some 

 very interesting comments upon a paper treating of the origin uf the hu- 

 man species in America. The theory advanced was the probability of the 

 existence in the miocene period of a land connection between Scotland and 

 Greenland, over which emigration took place from the Old to the New 

 World. It was also probable that, in the post pliocene period. Southeast- 

 ern Asia, New Holland and America were also connected by land, the bed 

 of the ocean in both of the parts where the land connection once existed 

 being now but 500 fathoms below the surface of the water. The speaker, 

 whose comments were received with deep interest, closed with the remark 

 that the theories advanced should not be rejected simply on the ground 

 that thej^ seemed improbable. 



The Chair remarked that scientists had begun to learn that it was un- 

 safe to reject new theories on scientific subjects, simply because of their 

 improbability, and hence the Society should not disregard altogether a 

 communication submitted to it by a person who had devoted his time to the 

 invention of a flying machine. The Chair did not himself believe that any 

 apparatus would ever be perfected by which a man would be enabled to so 

 apply his own muscular power as to enable him to fly, though at the same 

 time he had faith that by properly applying the principle of the screw a 

 machine would, perhaps, within the next ten years be invented which 

 would travel through the air. 



Dr. Holmes announced that he had prepared a paper, with illustrations. 

 upon the agave shaevi, a flower from the Pacific coast, which had excited 

 much interest among St. Louis horticulturists. The paper was referred to 

 the Publication Committee. 



Dr. C. Y. Riley then read a paper on the larvse habits of the blister bee- 

 tle, an insect of great commercial value, some of which were quite common 

 in the United States and were in their developed state frequently very in- 

 jurious to vegetation. It had been supposed that these larvse, as a rule, 

 lived in the earth and fed upon the roots of plants. Late investigations, 

 however, had shown that the larvas of the European blister beetle are par- 

 asites, living in the cells of the honey bee and feeding upon the eggs there- 

 in. They differ from other larvie in having seven instead of four stages of 

 existence. The paper contained an interesting description ot the life of 

 the larva of the European beetle fi-om the first stage in which it formed its 

 home in the hive by attaching itself to the bee by means of a sticky fluid 



