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author on his skill in photomicrography, he thought that the 

 utmost that should be said was that the photographs represented 

 the image as seen at the time. 



A paper by Mr. F. P. Smith on " Some British Spiders taken 

 in 1908," was taken as read. 



Mr. F. P. Smith delivered a lecture, illustrated with a number 

 of interesting lantern photographs, dealing with " Flies, from 

 Several Points of View." In his introductory remarks, the 

 lecturer said that he had taken " flies " as the subject of his 

 little chat for the following reason. During the last twelve 

 years he had been studying the Arachnida ; and in spite of the 

 fact that he had endeavoured in every possible way to minimise 

 the distaste which the average human being possessed for 

 anything in the nature of a spider, so far his efforts seemed 

 fruitless. Personally, he rather blamed the fly for this state of 

 affairs ; for whenever the spider is conjured up in the popular 

 mind, it is as the ruthless destroyer of the helpless, harmless 

 flies. He therefore wished to review the flies, not from his 

 own possibly prejudiced standpoint, but from the point of view 

 of others, in order that those present might have an opportunity 

 of judging for themselves whether these insects really merited 

 the sympathy usually meted out to them. The lecturer dealt 

 first with the subject from the point of view of the man at the 

 museum — the individual who recognises 40,000 species of flies, 

 and is sorely tried in his endeavours to formulate for them a 

 satisfactory system of classification. The various characters 

 upon which the order had been subdivided were mentioned, and 

 also the difficulties which arose even in defining what really 

 constituted a " fly." Next came the man with the microscope. 

 To him the fly was a source of delight, furnishing endless objects 

 of great interest and beauty. Photomicrographs of some of the 

 more familiar microscopic objects derived from the Diptera 

 were exhibited in the lantern. The man with the pocket-lens — 

 the intelligent field naturalist — was next considered. To him 

 all nature was wonderful, and flies not the least so. The 

 amount of real study which could be accomplished with a simple 

 magnifier was very great ; but in many cases the man with the 



