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Vol. XXX. LONDON, JANUARY, 1898. No. i. 



JAMES FLETCHER, LL. D., F. R. S. C, F. L. S. 



We are happy to be able to begin the thirtieth volume of the 

 Canadian Entomologist by presenting to our readers an excellent 

 portrait of Dr. James Fletcher, whose name is a household word among 

 entomologists, not only in Canada, but throughout North America, and 

 in many parts of the world besides. Born and educated in England, Dr. 

 Fletcher came to this country, when a young man, as a junior officer in the 

 Bank of British North America, and soon began to devote his leisure hours 

 to the study of insects and plants. Finding the work of a bank by no means 

 congenial to his literary and scientific tastes, he obtained a position as 

 assistant in the Library of Parliament at Ottawa. It was not long before 

 his talents and attainments in botany and entomology became widely 

 known, chiefly through his contributions to this magazine and the annual 

 reports of our Society. His first paper in the latter was an article on 

 Canadian Buprestidse, which was published in 1878, while his first contri- 

 bution to this magazine appeared in January, 1880. During all the years 

 that have followed no volume of either publication has been issued with- 

 out some valuable articles from his pen. 



In 1878 he became a member of the Council of the Entomological 

 Society of Ontario, and every year since has been elected to hold some 

 office in the Society, being four times vice-president, and for three years, 

 1886-8, president. In 1879 he was one of the originators of the Ottawa 

 Field Naturalists' Club, the most successful society of the kind in the 

 Dominion, and more recently he suggested, and by his influence and 

 energy accomplished, the formation of the important Association of 

 Economic Entomologists of North America. 



The first official recognition of his attainments was in 1885, when he 

 was appointed Honorary Entomologist to the Department of Agriculture 

 at Ottawa, and in that capacity, though much hampered by his duties in 

 the library, he published a valuable report on the injurious insects of the 

 year. Two years later his present position of Entomologist and Botanist 

 to the Experimental Farms of the Dominion was conferred upon him. In 



