Microscopical Society. 415 



present instance I had been compelled to pay for the drawings and all the 

 copper-plate engravings, it would have caused an additional expense of at 

 least twenty shillings per volume to the purchaser." 



" If experience alone can teach us wisdom in the common affairs of life, 

 with which we are familiar, how much more probable is it, that in the pro- 

 gress of enterprises and speculations with which we are totally unacquainted, 

 we should meet with disappointments, and often be taught a lesson we little 

 expected ! such has been my fortune. — I had little idea of the large sum of 

 money that would be required to carry on an illustrated publication, con- 

 taining several hundreds of highly-finished coloured engravings ; of the in- 

 cessant labour and anxiety which a periodical would entail upon me ; of 

 numerous minor difficulties to which an author is exposed in the different 

 stages of his work, and the little encouragement given to expensive works 

 of art ; — these have rendered the British Entomology a heavy tax for many 

 years, and I have only been encouraged in my progress, by a desire to fulfill 

 my promise to the Subscribers, and with the prospect of making it generally 

 useful to those who are engaged in scientific pursuits. I now trust that the 

 attention which has been paid to every department will recommend this 

 work to those who have withheld from purchasing it, from their avowed and 

 just objection to taking publications in numbers; and as it will, I trust, be- 

 come the basis for a well-grounded knowledge of insects, I may anticipate 

 some remuneration from other sources. It is also most earnestly hoped 

 that those Subscribers who have discontinued taking the work, will now do 

 me the justice to complete their copies, without which I must be subjected 

 to great loss, and their own volumes will be of no value after a short pe- 

 riod, as the stock is in the course of being perfected by reprinting the defi- 

 cient parts." 



We sincerely hope that the work, having been now brought to its 

 completion, in a style of uniform and first-rate excellence as to its 

 illustrations, and of the highest utility as regards the plan and exe- 

 cution of the descriptive and scientific part, may ultimately be found 

 not wholly to disappoint the just expectations of the author. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



At a meeting of the Microscopical Society on Tuesday the 20th 

 of May, Mr. Dalrymple read, a paper upon the family of Closterinae, 

 which have been classed by Ehrenberg* amongst the polygastric 

 Infusoria, and by Meyen amongst Conferva? or aquatic vegetables. 



The author, after detailing the history of Closterium from its 

 discovery by Coste in 1774 down to the present time, entered into 

 a detail of its appearance and general structure ; he described 

 * See Ann. Nat. Hist. vol. ii. p. 121. 



