376 the president's address. 



In most things their accuracy is amazing, and they are full of 

 details. He has recorded facts in the development of my old 

 friend the fly, which even Weismann has neglected. Beside all 

 this there is a freshness in his style which appeals to the mind, and 

 a charming simplicity. He had an almost childish love for dis- 

 covering new facts. I was reading the other day his account of the 

 proboscis of the fly, and cannot forbear to quote to you what he 

 says, for it is typical of the man who wrote four heavy quartos on 

 insect anatomy. Reaumur gives a delightful description of the 

 manner in which the fly feeds, and of the movements of the lips of 

 the proboscis. He had noted that the insect regurgitates its food, 

 that it ruminates, as he puts it. He adds, to make sure of this, "I 

 fed a fly with some bright red gooseberry jelly, which appeared to 

 suit its taste amazingly. When I thought it had had enough, I 

 took it up gently between my thumb and finger to observe it at my 

 leisure. Presently, to my delight, I saw the bright red fluid 

 appear, and saw the insect suck it up again. I felt sure by its 

 colour that it was the gooseberry jelly, but to make assurance sure 

 I put my tongue to the proboscis of the insect and tasted it." 



The next work to which I shall draw your attention is Lyonet's 

 well-known " Anatomy of the Goat Moth Caterpillar." It was 

 published in 1762, and is a masterpiece of research, and most beauti- 

 fully illustrated by steel engravings. I fancy these engravings first 

 excited me when a lad to work at the anatomy of insects. 



In 1790 a work appeared at Nurnberg, which is by no means so 

 well known ; I allude to Gleichen's book on the common house fly. 

 Wilhelm Friedrich Friherrn Gleichen, a very great man in Nurn- 

 berg, a possessor of the Grand Cross of the Bed Eagle of Branden- 

 burg, was the historian of our humble household pest. This work 

 was most beautifully illustrated by one John Christopher Keller. 

 It must be regarded rather as a life history and description of the 

 external appearance of the fly than as an anatomical work ; and I 

 should not perhaps have mentioned it at all were- it not for its 

 antiquity and from its near relation to my own special study — the 

 blow-fly. 



In passing on I must draw your attention to Savigny's 

 "Memoirs on Invertebrates." It appeared in Paris in 1816. 

 Unfortunately it is a very incomplete publication, and does no 

 justice to Savigny. It is not too much to say of Savigny that all 

 the work which has been done on the mouth organs of insects was 



