Report of the President 61 



Society have continued to fill in the weak places in our local 

 collections. Dr. Lutz, in continuing the local field work of 

 this division, has replaced many specimens devoid of exact 

 data with specimens accompanied by careful field notes, he has 

 added a number of species new to the collection as well as 

 forms new to this locality, and has discovered certain species 

 new to science. This work also has continued to receive the 

 hearty and efficient support of the New York Entomological 

 Society. The magnitude of the task of securing a complete 

 collection of local insects is indicated by the fact that in spite 

 of so many years of work on the part of so many investigators, 

 our collections still lack more than 5,000 of the species to be 

 found within fifty miles of New York City. 



Field work in other regions has yielded most satisfactory 

 results. Early in the year Mr. Grossbeck, assisted by William 

 T. Davis, made collections in southwestern Florida to extend 

 and supplement the work accomplished last year by Messrs. 

 Lutz, Leng and Davis. The material thus secured, together 

 with that already on hand or generously loaned from other 

 collections, is being studied by specialists. Their results will 

 be published in a series of reports under the general title of 

 "Insects of Florida." The report on the Diptera is already 

 prepared for the press; it is by C. W. Johnson of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, and lists 832 species, of which 382 

 are additions to the best previous list. This monograph also 

 gives a discussion of the important relationship borne by the 

 Floridan fauna to those of surrounding regions. Entomo- 

 logical field work was also carried on in Newfoundland and 

 Labrador by Mr. Leng, accompanied by George P. Engelhardt 

 of the Brooklyn Museum. The specimens secured on this 

 expedition are particularly interesting because of their value 

 for the problems of geographical distribution, and because 

 many of them are either new species or undescribed local 

 races. The spiders obtained at the same time are under 

 investigation by J. H. Emerton of Boston. 



The work of the year on the general collection of insects 

 has consisted largely of the assembling of named specimens 

 and the preliminary sorting of unidentified material into the 

 larger taxonomic division. The regular staff has had little 



