1877.] 75 [Gray. 



lower part of legs and the tarsi yellow. I take them to be of the 

 species Termes flavipes Kollar, but I thought it a rare thing for them 

 to be found so far north, and I did not know they made nests in 

 hillocks, and am consequently puzzled. 



Not knowing how to describe entomological specimens at the time, 

 I did not take a more minute description of these insects. Can you 

 inform me whether it is customary, or even common, for these white 

 ants to make such nests, or, from the meagre description, inform me 

 to what species they belong. 



I may as well say that I never found the " queen," although I 

 came across thousands of eggs in different stages of maturity. 



Is it possible to tell me from the following miserable description in 

 my note-book of the workers, the name of the species: " The work- 

 ers were nearly half an inch long, with a large head of a reddish 

 color, with small, black eyes and large and strong nippers, a long, 

 narrow thorax of a brown color tinged with red, and a large abdo- 

 men of a satiny black, with gray cross stripes." These ants had a 

 number of small black ants working around the nest (perhaps Ter- 

 mopsis occidentis AValk.). 



Hoping that, from among your multifarious cares of business, you 

 can spare sufficient time to aid me in determining these species, 

 I remain, Yours, 



H. S. TREHERNE. 



The deaths of Karl Ernst von Brier, an Honorary Member 

 of the Society, and of Mr. F. B. Meek, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, a Corresponding Member, were announced. 



Section of Botany. January 10, 1877. 



Mr. T. T. Bouve in the chair. Twenty persons present. 



Dr. G. L. Goodale read the following note from Dr. Asa 

 Gray on some remarkable specimens of Kalmia latifolia. 



It is well known that this Kalmia attains its maximum size in the 

 Southern Alleghanies. Probably nothing upon record exceeds, or 

 even equals, the following measurements of the girth of two trees 

 which grew, along with others not very much smaller, in the bottom 

 of a dell back of Caesar's Head, on the extreme western border of 

 South Carolina. One. trunk, at a foot or so from the ground, meas- 



