Mr. Douglas read the following extract from a letter received from Dr. Sahlberg from Helsingfors:—
"As you have already heard, I went on an entomological excursion to Yenisei. My plan was to meet Professor Nordenskjöld at the mouth of the river, and to return per steamer over the Kara Sea. I did not succeed, and therefore had to travel back through Siberia; still I have brought a mass of insects with me from the extreme north of Siberia, especially Coleoptera and Hemiptera, and now I am busy getting them into order. The insect fauna of Arctic Siberia agrees with that of Lapland, and I had the pleasure to find several species which I had formerly discovered in the north of my own country; for example, among Hemiptera, Platypsallus acanthioides and Bathysmatophorus Reuteri, the last being the most frequent of the Cicadaria in the district. In the neighbourhood of the River Yenisei, in places which are yearly flooded there were to be found many species strange to Europe, but not very many new.
"I have just looked through my Siberian collection of Hemiptera-Heteroptera, and as most of these were collected in the extreme north, the lot is rather poor, and consists of less than one hundred species, of which fourteen were new—viz., one Aradus, one Calocoris, two Orthotylus, one Orthops, one Pachytoma, one Anthocoris, one Acompocoris, five Salda, one Corixa. I am interested most in the Salda species, which were large and fine, and discovered in the extreme North (69°–70° 20'), in Tundra territory (extra limites arborum).
"I have just received the commission from the Nordenskjöld Yenisei Expedition (which consists of four naturalists, amongst whom is Phihp Trybom, an entomologist), to work at the collection of Coleoptera and Hemiptera, which, however, is still in Siberia. I shall therefore not publish anything until I have looked through it, although I have the descriptions of the new species ready. Pending the appearance of Fieber's 'European Cicadaria,' I shall begin the Coleoptera."
Paper read.
The Secretary read a paper by Mr. W.L. Distant, "On the Geographical Distribution of Danais archippus." The author remarked on the migration of the butterfly from North America (its original home) eastward to Europe and the Azores and westward to the South Sea Islands and Australia, and attributed the "means of dispersal" to "winds, currents, and the agency of man." After the reading of the paper a discussion ensued, in which considerable doubt was expressed as to the probability of insects being conveyed on floating timber by the agency of the Gulf Stream or other currents.—F.G.
