XXll PEOCEEDINGS, 



the present development of science, not of very great value. If 

 we aim at achieving real scientific results we must expect to have 

 to pay for them both with our time and with our labour. 



" If there be anyone here who may think of devoting himself 

 to the study of life-histories, I need hardly say that he has an 

 abrmdant choice of subjects, even in so narrow and so well worked 

 a country as England. I will ask your permission to take a run 

 over that department of natural history with which I have of late 

 years occupied myself. I refer to the study of insects. Anyone 

 who has occupied himself with promoting the scientific study of 

 insects will, I think, agree with me when I say that almost every- 

 thing still remains to be done. The insects have been collected 

 and classified, but with rare exceptions their life-histories are still 

 unknown. Let me instance the Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, for 

 the simple reason that they are better known than the rest. We 

 know well their external forms or shapes ; the stages of many 

 have been recorded and drawn ; and along with these external 

 features we know something about their food-plants, mode of life, 

 and so on ; but how their mode of life and peculiarities of structure 

 are interrelated we know not. I think it is a reproach to the 

 naturalists of our generation that they are content to leave the 

 higher knowledge of insects and devote their whole attention to 

 mechanical details. 



" As a type of what I am dealing with, let me refer you to the 

 common Diptera, I do not think that more than a dozen out of 

 the vast number of these insects have been thoroughly investigated. 

 It seems that 200 or 300 have been studied, at least superficially, 

 and of these we know more or less ; but they are among many 

 thousands of which it seems that we are practically in complete 

 ignorance. A\Thiat, then, can we expect to leani about such 

 a subject as this unless we are prepared to meet difficulties and 

 incur the cost of time and labour ? Here is a vast and important 

 field inviting the attention of naturalists ; and when we consider 

 the number of enthusiastic naturalists scattered, not only over our 

 own, but also over every other country, we might surely expect 

 most important results if this business were taken seriously in hand. 



" As to the methods of inquiry, let me suppose that any one 

 of you intends to take up live natural history. I should recommend 

 him to study the things which are commonly found round about 

 him ; to procure those animals which he is accustomed to see again 

 and again every day, and which he will not have to go a mile 

 or two to procure, say from the nearest stream if not too far away. 

 Then as to the helps which exist, there is a literature of this 

 subject, but one difficulty is that most, if not all, of this literature 

 is written in a foreign language. Malpighi wrote in Latin, and 

 Swammerdam in Dutch, Reaumur in French, while Boerhaave 

 translated Swammerdam's work into Latin. 



" It is singular that so great a lapse of time has taken place with 

 little addition to the literature of this subject, since these writers 

 are of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The work which 



