THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST, 171 



The President then delivered his 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of the Entomological Club ; 



For the honor which you were pleased to confer upon me, at your last 

 meeting, when I was unable to be with you, in calling me to preside over 

 you, I am fully appreciative, aud would return my grateful acknowledg- 

 ments. While I well know that there are several among you who far 

 better deserved the honor of succeeding to the chair vacated by my 

 illustrious predecessor, yet I would interpret your selection as a tribute to 

 my devotion to our loved science, and to my earnest desire to aid in its 

 progress to the extent of my humble ability. 



On these annual gatherings, marking the lapse of a period signalized 

 by progress equaling, even surpassing that of a decade but a few years 

 ago, it would seem fitting- and proper that a comprehensive view of that 

 progress should be given. But this has been so ably done by one of our 

 number, and you have had it presented to you in the pages of Psyche, that 

 whatever I might say, in this direction, would be but repetition. 



Permit me then, instead, to refer to some evidences of progress in 

 American Entomology, shown within the recollection of several of us here 

 present. Going back forty years, very little was known of our abundant 

 insect fauna, except of the Coleoptera, an order which enjoyed the good 

 fortune of being an attractive one, easy to collect in and prepare for the 

 cabinet, and which early enlisted in its study earnest students, who have 

 since lent honored names to the annals of American science. Thus, in 

 1835, in Harris' List of the Insects of Massachusetts, the names of 994 

 Coleoptera are given, and but 140 Lepidoptera. Of the latter, 34 are 

 butterflies, four of which are erroneously referred to European species : 

 among these only three species of Hesperidae are mentioned. Seventeen 

 species of Noctuidae are recorded, with the additional note of "96 unnamed 

 species." There are also the names of 7 Geometers, 1 Pyralid, 1 Tortrix 

 and 6 Tineids. How great an advance upon this in our knowledge of 

 forms is shown in the Crotch Check List of 7,450 species of Coleoptera 

 in the Grote Check List of 1,132 species of Noctuids (already quite 

 incomplete from the species subsequently made known), and in the 

 the Edwards Catalogue of 506 species of Butterflies (110 of which are 

 Hesperidse). I often recall, as I am reminded of past progress, a request 



